I Quit.

O yeah. I quit. I am done arguing. I am done fighting. I am done repeating myself over and over.

Tonight, after I told my daughter repeatedly to eat her supper so we can go see a movie, I finally blew a plug. Instead of yelling or throwing out ultimatums I told her to do whatever she wanted. If her supper was not consumed or the dishes were not stacked in the dishwasher on time then we just wouldn't go. I slowly ate my supper, put my dishes in the dishwasher and walked into my room. I knew I couldn't hold my tongue and I knew I would eventually cave and yell "Hurry the hell up" so I laid in my bedroom trying to meditate to lower my blood pressure.

Five minutes later my daughter bursts into the room with her shoes on and by a small miracle even had her coat on. She cleaned up after herself and was anxiously awaiting me by the door.

I couldn't believe it actually worked. I felt empowered. I can do this mom thing after all. The past few months I have doubted my parenting skills as my daughter has challenged me with a multitude of different antics. The worst being late all the time, constantly needing harassed. I cannot stand being late. I find it terribly rude and uncalled for. And then my daughter, the watermelon with shoulders that I tried to push out of my vagina but ended up being ripped from my womb, is always.always.ALWAYS late. Woe is me. I have grounded her, yelled at her, took things from her, jumped up in down in a fit of rage in front of her and I have shed many crocodile tears because of her. And every single thing has failed. Miserably.

Until today. I always knew that allowing children to make their own mistakes and therefore having their own consequences worked but that mother needs to have patience, tolerance and in my humble opinion, needs to be freaking Mother Theresa to achieve this sort of discipline. I know I am a pathetic loseramazing but I am no saint....yet. But dammmnnnn....I proved that I do have a wee bit of patience left.

So. I praised her, loved up on her and was ridiculously excited that we would make it to the show on time....for once.

Until I saw my husband sitting on the couch, clearly not ready to go.

We were, as always, 10minutes late for the show.