January 22, 2026 - Thursday

School was good, but we had some behavior issues that I got extremely frustrated with this morning. It was just stupid bickering, but I'm so over it. Here's the story: each of the kids gets one of the breakfast necessities each morning: bowls, spoons, milk...and I guess one person gets lucky. Except they have favorite/easiest things to grab, so it's a rush to be the person who gets the easiest stuff every morning. I guess spoons are the least easy, since they're always still in the dishwasher. On top of it being the worst thing to bring to the breakfast table, everyone also has strong preferences as to which spoon they want to use. SO, the person who has to get the spoons is also supposed to sort through all of the spoons in the dishwasher and find everyone's favorite spoon. Well, Ruby got spoon duty today, which she feels like she gets an unfair amount of the time because she's the slowest to get to the table. She did not feel like getting everyone's favorite spoon today, so she just grabbed a handful and passed them out. Clementine had an absolute hissy fit and started yelling at Ruby about the spoon she received. Ruby insisted that she didn't give her the "worst spoon" on purpose, she just gave them out randomly. But Clementine, ever the victim, was sure that it wasn't random chance. So, she gets up, lunges across the table, and steals Ruby's spoon. Ruby, of course, retaliates and jumps up on the table too, grabbing to get her spoon back. Every instinct in me made me want to go in there and smack both of their butts and send them to their rooms. I didn't handle it perfectly, but it was peaceful, at least. I refused to sit with them at breakfast and told them to finish their meal silently and come straight into the school room when they were finished eating. I have felt like screaming at them almost all day, since that. They've been counted more than usual and have been on the brink of getting into trouble all day long. Behavior-wise, it has not been a good day.

I left around 1pm to go get my hair done, which I did not feel like doing today. The thing is, my hairdresser bought her own salon, along with a friend. I guess this is wonderful for her, and I am happy for her! However, she used to be in a room, all by herself, and it was just me and her. Social interaction-wise, this was easy. Just one-on-one conversation and then I leave. NOW, she is a part of a team and hers is one of 4 chairs in the salon. There are three hairdressers, their clients, and anyone who is waiting. It's a whole big thing, social interaction-wise now. Now I need to be prepared for a group situation, which is absolutely never a thing I look forward to. Instead of a one-on-one conversation, I have interjecting hairdressers and an audience for everything I say. I'm not into it. But it went fine, honestly. The third hairdresser left a few minutes after I got there and the hairdresser that was still there didn't have a client. But it was still a group convo, which I would have happily avoided. My hair looks good though!

When I finally got home from the hair party, I forced the kids out on a very regrettable, freezing cold walk, from which it took a very long time to recover. Then I started to get dinner ready, then we ate, and watched two episodes of The Mysterious Benedict Society. I am very grumpy, and menstruating, and ended up getting very upset with the kids at the end of the evening too. Everyone was complaining about all of the millions of gnats in Captain's enclosure and I, frustrated that EVERYONE knows how disgusting Captain's enclosure is and NOBODY wants to do anything about it, shut down all the fun for the evening and said it might be about time for me to just sell the damn tortoise. The tortoise that everyone begged for and needed above all other things for months. The pet that, once obtained, everyone stopped caring about instantly. He is their responsibility, but has become a chore that nobody wants to deal with; completely ignored 99% of the time. In the end, I made them clean out his enclosure then go to bed. They're sure going to miss me while I'm at the retreat this weekend!