Friday, Jan. 02, 2015 - 6:06 p.m.

Good god, yall.

There was an incident last night in which Q was being a right pest-- trying to take a blanket U had, upsetting him greatly, and she would NOT LET UP. Now when these things happen in front of the whole family, everyone has to try to throw their two cents in about What Should Be Done, and they never listen to our advice which is always Please Bugger Off. This time FIL decided he should try to restrain Q against her will-- BIL picked her up and took her to him, and FIL held on tight even though it was clearly making her panic and exacerbating the entire situation. J told him to let her go, it wasn't helping. He didn't let go. Said something about he what we were doing wasn't helping either. I told him to let her go. He didn't let go. I got on my knees very close to his face and told him clearly to LET HER GO. He didn't let her go! I actually had to pry his hands off of her. She ran away, terrified and sobbing now because Papa had hurt her. J was shaken because his next move probably wild have been to slug his father; his
Mom was in tears, Q was even more upset (and still hell bent on getting the blanket), and and and. MIL apologized to me, saying it's just that there are things that "scare them" for Q.

Then today they all went out to brunch and Q was non compliant again. FIL dramatically reports being "depressed" about her.

She is a challenge, for sure. So many times she wants things exactly her way and will not back down. And hard as it is, I am so proud of her for being that way. She is focused and tenacious and independent and determined and those are all things I hoped my child would be. I fervently hope she reaches a point of maturity where she can understand and care about our explanations enough to find them persuasive, but I am would not trade any one of those traits for anything. I would add a dash more compassion, but that's it.

Yeah it kinda bugs me that she doesn't recognize that my love for her really is for exactly the way she is now, not seeing her as a core of good with a lot of "problems" to be fixed. Whereas as much as they love her, I think they do not fully accept her. But off she goes to spend as much time with them as possible anyway. Ah, well. Time will tell.

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