A Jen Too Many

Oldest Daughter is sobbing hysterically in her room because she yelled nastily one too many times at her younger sister and I had to follow through on my threat and ground her for the day. She is not allowed to go play outside with her friends. I feel terrible. I hate when I have to do things that upset them. I know it's good parenting. I know letting her do whatever she likes without consequences is bad parenting and will ruin her life quite handily, thank you. Nevertheless, she feels like the world has come to an end and she will never be happy again, and I feel like a mean person who just went and kicked a kitten.

On a more pleasant topic, last week we saw my dad! The trip to the airport went rather well, and the time with Grandpa was great. The only real problem was when Youngest Daughter finally truly grasped that Grandpa was not coming home with us. She fell apart and sobbed the most heartbroken little sobs you have ever heard. There she was, holding Grandpa's hand and skipping along very happily, and then BOOM! Grandpa has to get in line to go through security and that was that. It took us quite a while to get her calmed down, and she was touchy the rest of the evening.*

We drove an hour and a half to spend about an hour and 15 minutes with my dad. It was a very nice visit though, well worth the trip, and he brought me a surprise! I thought I had lost my Senior Memory Book right after high school, but Dad found it and brought it to me. My senior photo is in there, along with signatures and note from my friends - some of them people I haven't thought about in years. It was a lot of fun to look through.

There was also my 9th grade, junior high school yearbook. Wow, I was a weird-looking kid back then! Whatever possessed me to think that was an attractive way to wear my hair?
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*OK - so maybe not enough of a change of topic...