Psycho Sundays

During the week, Zoe and I have a pretty predictable schedule and she is almost always well behaved. After she gets home from kindergarten, we have lunch together, talk about her day, and then she catches up with her toys and will occasionally watch a little Tom & Jerry. Sometimes we'll play a board game or do some shopping, but mostly she loves having this time to herself before the boys get home from school and the chaos of the evening begins.

Since the rest of the week can get so hectic, I try to keep Sundays as open as possible, and this jolt to the schedule seems to throw Zoe for a loop. Instead of just hanging out with me, everyone is home. This means that there are more candidates for board games, video games, or Uno, which creates more opportunities for her to lose. She holds it together pretty well if she loses once, or even twice. But if she loses at a variety of games throughout the day, the frustration becomes unbearable and she ends up making John McEnroe look like Sportsman of the Year.

There were a couple times yesterday when I thought she was going to have to forfeit every single present under the tree. She hauled off and whacked Doug in the leg, she tried to cheat at Dora Candyland, she screamed at Zach and then hid in her closet, she tried to cheat at Uno, and then she got mad at Zach again while playing Wii. Fortunately for her, Zach thinks her competitiveness is pretty funny, and although he gets annoyed when she's threatening to hit him over the head with the game board, he's able to laugh about it later.

Around 6:00 last night, she came outside while I shoveled the driveway and I watched while she hurled her body off of a snowbank over and over again while bellowing, "Heee-yaaaah! Waaaahhoooo!" and threw ice chunks at a miniature snowman that Charlie built in the cul-de-sac. Except for having to occasionally pause so that I could readjust her mitten or put a hat back on, she cathartically flailed around for about 45 minutes, ridding herself of all traces of pent up aggression.

Maybe I need to be more realistic about expecting her to have a "relaxing" Sunday. After all, even though I kept yesterday open and didn't drive anywhere, it was filled with laundry, a little bit of cleaning, nagging kids, seven hours of cookie baking, shoveling snow, and shouting at a couple football games. I guess if she truly is my daughter and blessed with my genetics, being stationary and quiet for more than ten minutes at a time isn't going to happen. Since she's only five, I'm sure I'll have to tolerate a few more Sundays of listening to her complain because someone is in her way and getting pissed off after a loss. And then when she's a little older, instead of yelling at everyone the instant she gets frustrated, she can write a blog.