Itsy bitsy tiny weenie yellow polka dot.......steps

The storm has at the moment blown over, I no longer feel like I am being buried

 This picture I took while waiting at a stop light on Saturday. 

My neice Cassie and Erin rollerskating on Sunday

Erin, Monika and Katie playing the Wii Sunday morning

Koudai, Cassie and Katie made a Jenny snowman

Well we are on a new chapter of our life.  Sunday we did pretty good.  Erin was and still on a edgey side.  So after she ate, they played the Wii for a little bit, it was great hearing the laughing in the living room, and then she asked again if she could go on the computer and I told her "no" not until tomorrow (referring to monday).  She then asked if she could watch a movie upstairs, I said that was fine.  So the kids all went upstairs to watch a movie.  When it was time to come down and get ready to go roller skating, Erin complied without any problems.  As we were walking out the door she said this is what I am wearing (the same clothes that is in the previous picture of the 3 girls playing the Wii), I said that was fine if that is what you want to wear, she looked at me for a second ( I think trying to see if she could pick a fight or something), then said I think I will go change.  At roller skating she didn't do to bad, she would talk to met, but it was short and to the point, she latched onto my neice Cassie who knows some signs.  She wouldn't really have much to do with her sisters, but she wasn't mean to them or anything. When we were done rollerskating one of my friends was leaving and Erin gave a big hug to her and smiled at me (She has hugged this friend before, but under the circumstance I feel she was doing it to get a reaction out of me seeing she been resisting my hugs during all this trying time.), I just smiled back and acted like I didn't care.  She then asked nicely to go to the store for noodles, so we went shopping.  We are standing in line and I was watching/talking with the 4 girls, Monika then walked next to Katie, spanked her on the butt, Katie did it back and they laughed.  Erin then spanked Jenny on her butt and then try to dance and pretend she was trying to get away from Jenny, Jenny said no playing Erin, and Erin looked at me, I said wait until we get home please.  Erin didn't say anything else, but this incident clue me into something that has bugged Erin.  Erin has said more then once that she tries to play with the girls when they are doing this and they tell her to stop.  Well I noticed that Sunday night, but my girls know not to start running or moving around in stores, whereas Erin doesn't know that, so to her I feel she is confused on why she can't do it but they do, so we need to work on that.  We got home, had supper with my neice her boyfriend.  Erin did well at the table and she even ate spaggetti..not just noodles, but sauce and turkey meat.  After supper the kids went outside for awhile.  Erin opt to stay in and watch a movie.  She informed me she doesn't like snow and doesn't want anything to do with it...poor thing, she will learn fast to get use to it and it going to stay for a long time.  So it is bedtime for the younger girls, they say good night to her and she does it back.  Then she is ready to go to bed, she said good night to me and started to walk away, I tapped her on the shoulder and gave her a hug, she put one arm up, she barely acknowledged Dave walked over to Cassie and gave her a big hug.
So now we are on Monday, a new day.  I had to work, so Dave got her off to school.  She was ok with him, but not making conversartion or anything with him.  She gets home after school and informs me that we have to find 2 pictures on the internet for homework and asked if I could help her.  I said that was fine.  She wanted to eat and so forth, I said I was going out with the younger girls.  So when I came back in later with my sister Cindy (she travelled with us) and Cassie.  Erin asked me to help her, so I started to help her, my sister was standing there with me.  I asked Erin to explain something to me, and she got fustrated with me right away, my sister intervene, got her calmed down and pretty much asked her the same question and Erin explained what she needed to do and allow my sister to ask more question.  Talk about me being a little fustrated with her, but we figure it all out.  We couldn't get it done because it was time to eat.  So we sat down at the table, Erin discovers she has warm water (her usual) and asked me for strawberry orange (she was trying to say strawberry milk as she was introduced to that on Sunday and liked it.), I looked at her confused and said strawberry milk and she gave me the dirty look and said no strawberry orange, I got her up from the table took her to the fridge and showed her an orange and asked her what it was, and then got the strawberry sauce out and asked her what that was, an I handed her both of them and said here you go.  I thought you wanted strawberry milk.  She did't like that,  So I asked her if she wanted me to make strawberry milk and she said no and sat down hard in the chair.  We were getting ready to pray and she stood up, Dave told her to sit down please, she didn't like that answer so she asked Monika to switch spots at the table, I said no to her, so then she sat as close to Monika and drew a line around her space and was indicating to Dave to not go near it.  I removed her from the table and walked back to her room with her.  When we got in there, we sat down on the bed and she asked me to leave and pushed me away, I side hugged her and she asked for me to stop, I did.   I asked her why she got mad at me when I asked her a question but when Cindy asked the same question you didn't get mad at her, that one I was trying to make sure what she was asking for, she got mad, she all of sudden got quite and said I want to die, and I said back (and I know this probably not the right thing to say and please don't critize me on it), I said back, fine, but you are still stuck in this family for a long time because you are my daughter, I love you and you are stuck with me, and then I put my hand on her leg and she said you are hurting my leg (I was resting it there), I said if you think that is hurting look at this, and I pulled up my sleeves and showed her the bruise, scratches I got  from her on  Saturday night (I didn't have any intention showing that to her because I didn't want to guilt her or shame her ),she just stared at me, stood up and said lets go eat supper, I said not until you show some respect and say sorry for the way you were acting out there, she said "sorry mom" (finally got it out of her) and I said you will say sorry to dad too and she nodded her head and we went out and sat down, she didn't look at dave, I got her attention and then she looked at Dave and said sorry.  Rest of supper went well and she cleaned up her dishes and asked if I would help her with her homework, so we went onto the computer to continue with her homework.  We ran into a problem with power point program, I knew Dave is good at it, so I told Erin, Dad can help us, and he did, when he fixed the problem, she didn't thank him, so I said to her to thank him, and she did nicely.  Then we ran into a problem again, Dave fixed it and Erin on her own said thank you.  When we finished she explained what homework she has for Tuesday.  She then said going to take a shower and then watch a movie is that ok.  yep it is.  We did group hugs and she was in it, she allowed me and the kids to hug her, she wasn't thrilled but she tolerated it.  She didn't hug Dave and he didn't make an attempt.
I am not sure if she playing us up right now, if she truly is starting to get it a little bit or what, but whatever the case it I will take it.  She said Sorry to both of us nicely, she said Thank you, and she meddled  out a little bit.  So hopefully we are on the upside for now.  Another thing, the girls and Erin played (teasing) each other for about 3 minutes....
Like I said itsy bitsy tiny weenie....steps.  But they are steps and each step gets to that much closer to the desnation which would mean, a secured, attached wonderful and beautiful daughter.  Thank you lord.