Kumbaya My Lord...Kumbaya!

I am singing this little song to calm myself down, which I am pretty proud of myself at this momen. It is so tough to have a teen-ager home for the summer, especially since I have to work.  How do you mom's survive with staying home with your kids...are there federally funded programs out there that I am not aware of?  If there are, please share, I would love to be home with my teen!  How do you survive on one income!

One of our rules is that Dani has to have her chores done by the time I get home.  Especially extra good today since she wanted to go to Old Navy for her bathing suit and then hang at the mall with a friend.  I did my inspection and the kitchen counters were not clean, pots and pans will soaking, dirty dishes on the one counter, trash barrel not even taken out to the curb...need I say more?  Then she gets all mad at me, raising her voice that she doesn't understand why I judged her and why I get away with leaving some dishs in the sink.  I tried to explain to her (and this is where I am proud of myself because I did not raise my voice) that when she works a 10 hour a day job then maybe I can be more relaxed about things, but since she is home all day, sittin' on her butt, watching TV then she can take more time to do the jobs right.  But she can not compare herself to me since I am 52 and she is just 15 years old.  This is where I put our plan of action into play.  I calmly asked her to go to her room, saying this was not a punishment but a time out for me.  Her reply..."I don't have to".  Second time I calmly repeated myself, her reply..."why don't you"? Third time, calmly still, I said "this is your last chance, either go to your room or get in the car and we are going to McKay Dee Hospital.  She got up, stormed away while throwing her purse at me.  She did finally go into her room, I picked up the purse and unlocked my bedroom door and as I was placing her purse into my room, she said "don't you dare put my purse into your room" (screaming at me again).  That's when I closed and locked the door and walked away.  She went into her room and slammed her door and I mean slam.  Everything vibrated!

The main point here is I used our plan that my husband and I came up with and agreed on.  My blood pressure did rise just a little but not much and I am feeling pretty calm, but wondering what is coming next. So as you can guess, no Old Navy and no hanging at the mall.  Too bad...so sad!