It's been one of those days.

The kind of day when you keep glancing at the clock while counting down the hours until all the small wonderful children will be safely snuggled in their beds, and guaranteed to be out of your hair for at least eight consecutive hours. It’s been the kind of day where you have successfully justified a 7:00 pm bedtime for an almost eight year old.

Let me preface by saying I love every one of my children more than life. Without them, well, I’d have to go out and get a real job.

But my control freak daughter’s tyrannical behavior has pushed me to my absolute limits. I’m so done. Saying she’s a difficult child is like saying hemorrhoids itch. I don’t often talk about it here because, by the time I get around to blogging, I’m usually enjoying some alone time and the very last thing I want to do is relive, through my keyboard, the kind of day she’s handed me. I could tell you that whatever request I ask of her must be repeated no less that three times for her to actually follow through to some degree. No matter what we’re doing, I can count on my Girl to test me each time, because there’s always an off-chance I may be persuaded. I could regale you with stories of her slapping the baby back because “he hit me first” or punching her big brother repeatedly because “he kept trying to change the game.” Or trying to control everybody and everything in a ten foot radius until we all feel like we’re trapped in thick, black sap. There have been days when no matter how many hugs or kisses I gave her, she’d still be angry and controlling. There are the days when she just wakes up angry at me and all I can do is exhale and let the hurricane winds blow because she’s just a freight train on a steep downhill trajectory. I can try to sidestep it, give her what she wants whenever she wants it in order to keep peace, but that’s really unfair to the well-behaved kid. He behaves yet She gets whatever she wants? Yeah, I would be confused too. Basically said, if she doesn’t feel like molding her square head into my round parenting peg, she won’t. Come hell or high water, that child meets me with defiance at every turn. And she lies. She sneaks. She manipulates. Yet she’s got me so tightly wound by the heart strings it’s unbearable. I love her incredibly despite.

I see her father in her and it alarms me. He’s alone and angry. I don’t want that for her.

So I bit the proverbial bullet and made a mental health appointment for her. I’m not looking for a diagnosis because there isn’t one. The child is an angel at school, trust me, I thought the teacher was making up stories too. Share with friends? Check. Compromises? Check. Respects authority? Check. At home? Not so much. And I’m thinking what have I done wrong? Because aren’t all mothers at the very root of their children’s neurosis anyway? I breastfed her, I smiled and laughed with her, I played with her, I fed her nutritious food, I co-slept with her and I rocked her and sang her “Sweet Baby James” every night for the first three years. Where did I go wrong? Why is my daughter so mean and controlling? I’m making myself completely vulnerable here, but I feel like it’s my fault. I worry about her behavior every single day.

But then I forget that I only contributed half her dna.

I’m afraid she’ll grow up to be like him and not like me. I’m can be flaky and anxious, but I know how to love others. I’m afraid nothing I do will make her be what I want her to be.

Back to today’s appointment. My father came to lend a hand with the boys so I could get her head checked. We promptly headed out the door, into the garage and as I yanked open the side door to the minivan, a brazillion fruit flies flurried into my face and all over my body. I screeched and gasped in horror as I saw the inside of the van was swathed in flies. The windows, the seats, the ceiling. Swarming, crawling, buzzing. Why? Because she refused to throw away her fucking banana like I asked three times yesterday. Just another pleasant result of my daughter and her blatant refusals to comply. It was lovely. My reaction was lovely. I think I may have screamed something about being “so frigging sick of kids ruining my shit” half a dozen times while running around in circles swatting flies off my head.

So, after de-flying a stinky van, we made it five minutes late to her appointment just to find out the doctor was called out unexpectedly and we’d have to reschedule. Thanks for calling me Ms. My Pants Are Too Tight and I Still Feather My Bangs Receptionist. Of course I felt like bursting into tears because at this point, I still felt bugs all over me, I didn’t think I could handle one more day of my super-rebellious-difficult-spirited-defiant-controlling child, I couldn’t get my father back to baby-sit later in the week and, well, I still felt bugs all over me. I could feel myself welling up and I stood there not knowing exactly what to say as she kept asking when we could reschedule, “no, my son has an optometrist appointment tomorrow, no, we have a soccer game on Wednesday evening, no, I have an appointment Wednesday morning with my own crazy doctor because can’t you see that MY marbles are about to spill out onto the floor?!”

I held it together while in the waiting room because I didn’t need Ms. I’m Still Stuck In The 80’s Receptionist thinking I’m the crazy one just trying to blame it on my child.

My husband gave me permission to start drinking an hour ago. But I’m still sober. The past few weeks have been unnerving and stressful, to put it mildly.

Thank garlic school starts in one week because I’m going to lose it if somebody doesn’t give me looney pills soon.