This week was one of those weeks. It all started on Monday. I got home to be greeted by my two charming daughters. It was nice they were both home so I decided to go to the store and buy us something to eat. While at the store, I get a disturbing text message from the youngest daughter. We'll call her Wee Z.
The text was something along the lines of "Rile E (my oldest daughter) is going to kill me. Mom is coming to pick me up. I love you. Bye." These are my favorite kinds of text messages. I sent back some clever response to start the defusing process (that's what I do; I defuse), but it's not important.
Before I could make it out of the store, I'm getting text messages from the mother. We'll call her Aim E. What am I going to do about Rile E? Perhaps family counseling? Does she need to see a psychologist? Is the sky falling?
I believe that in matters of tension, Rile E behaves like Aim E. They apparently share the I'm too emotional to think clearly when I'm stressed out gene. I should also mention that Wee Z takes after me in her ability to piss people off who are too emotional to think clearly.
For the most part, I'm ignoring and thinking. To keep the parties from believing that I am not empathetic to their plight I make a few choice phone calls to get both sides of the story and to tell Rile E to clean up her mess. Apparently during the confrontation she had thrown a Dr. Pepper can at Wee Z and dumped a bag of potato chips on her head. I'm still not entirely clear where the threat of imminent death at the hands of Rile E entered the picture. It's not important.
When I got home, the house was eerily empty, but the chips had been cleaned up.
Back when Rile E was about 8, a pediatrician diagnosed her with ADD. I'm not a fan of the diagnosis and you, as my most adoring reader, should know that by now. If you don't know it, you can read about it here.
The messages continued to come at me on Monday. Apparently Wee Z had convinced her mom that imminent death at the hands of Rile E was on the horizon and she was living in mortal fear, not knowing when the death blow would actually occur. I told Wee Z to buy one of those junior sized aluminum baseball bats to help alleviate her fear. I'm not sure if she did. But, they do help with fear. No, I'm not condoning her hitting anyone with it. Just defusing. It's what I do.
I had a talk with Rile E on Monday night and she seemed all better and had regrets for losing her precious little temper.
On Tuesday, I made Rile E an appointment with a counselor to talk about her anger management issue and perhaps give me some insight as to whether she actually has ADD. He said on the phone that losing ones temper for no apparent reason is a classic symptom of untreated ADD. I knew that Rile E hadn't been taking any ADD meds for quite some time so I had a moment of panic.
I should mention in passing that on Tuesday Rile E and Wee Z were safely huddled under the same roof again and seemed to be content in their proximity. There were no baseball bats in the room. Or potato chips.
Wednesday, Rile E and I went to her first counseling session. After talking to Rile E for an hour, he decided that if she does have ADD it's very borderline. He said he believes it's more a tone of voice thing. Based on what Rile E had told him, she doesn't deal well with the way her mom or Wee Z address her. Is this her fault or their fault?
In Rile E's pretty little head, it's their fault. They are condescending and it causes her to flip out. Anyway, he goes on to say, among other things, that Rile E has perhaps learned this behavior from her mom. I kind of shutdown after this because I'm picturing in my little head what kind of sh*t storm this is going to create when Rile E announces to her mom that her anger management issues stem from something her mom has allegedly done.
And, in the irony of all ironies, Rile E told Aim E and Aim E lost her temper. Neither one of them can see that they are just alike. It's almost amusing. One of these days, I'm going to put a voice recorder on my phone so they can both hear what they say to me. Rile E will call me at 9 AM and say something like, "Dad, Mom's driving me crazy! She completely flips out for no reason and now she's turned my phone off!". Then at about 2 PM, I'll get a call from Aim E, "Gar, you need to do something about Rile E, I can't handle her any more. She completely flipped out for no reason so I've turned off her phone."
If they both weren't so angry, it would be funny. But, I laugh a little on the inside anyway.
Oh Gar, how did a man who look like you managed to get lovely daughters that look like that?
ReplyDeleteThanks Ghost. They are pretty :). I am very lucky.
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