Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger…

This morning I witnessed the return of THE BADGER. This is Cabbage Patches alter ego that only makes an appearance when she is awoken. When Super Girl started kindergarten a couple of years ago I discovered this horrible personality and often took great care in doing whatever possible to not come in contact with it, i.e. after a couple of weeks of dealing with it while trying to get Super Girl ready for school, I just let her sleep until whenever since she didn’t have to go to school anyway. The kid loves her sleep, I can respect that.

As this school year approached I had a growing sense of foreboding. I had horrible dreams of every morning her screaming and crying from the time she got up until she got on the bus. Images of me wrestling her into clothing every morning and putting her in a head lock to get her hair in a ponytail. Not good, not good. The beginning of kindergarten didn’t start like that; she was amazingly eager to go and was mostly happy to get up in the morning. As the months progressed she wasn’t quite so eager to get up though. She’d come down stairs and lay on the couch, pulling the afghan over her head and wouldn’t move until she absolutely HAD to. Eventually she figured that if she refused breakfast she could get 10 more minutes of sleep. And hey, isn’t sleeping more important than a bowl of Cheerios?

Last week she was sick one day, so she got some medicine and was sent back to bed. She was so totally cool with that. Funny thing was that she woke up at 9:30 am feeling better and announced to me that she was getting dressed and I’d need to walk her to school. She doesn’t quite understand the concept of staying HOME from school. A couple of times this week she’s tried to convince me she was SICK so she could sleep in – she can’t fool the thermometer though. Tuesday and Wednesday she just wouldn’t get dressed so I had to wrestle her into clothes (of which she told me she didn’t want to wear) – what fun!

Today was the day I’ve dreaded. She was in full on BADGER mode. From the moment I flipped on the light in their bedroom until she stepped out the door (and I’m assuming got on the bus… maybe even now as she’s headed to lunch) she screamed and cried and gnashed her teeth. She denounced us all and proclaimed that she hated her clothes, she hated the cats, she hated me, she hated her sister, she hated the dog, she hated those shoes, she hated her backpack, she hated her coat… you get the picture. It was something else. (And for all of you soon to be parents and parents of tiny angelic babies, who happen to be snickering, be warned… it WILL happen to you. All children are born to appear angelic, but they are really little time bombs of terror just waiting to unleash it on you when you least expect it… and then they’ll be adorable and cute again so you don’t actually lock them in a dog crate, you just really, really consider it).

So… what’s the point of this post? Fuck if I know, I thought it might more socially acceptable to write about that than a detailed inventory of my sex toys or a boring account of folding laundry.