The morning with Janey

Morning started about 2am---Janey woke up ready to have fun. There is no getting her back to sleep when she gets like this---she is sort of manic. Tony and I took turns sleeping and trying to get her to sleep. She fell back asleep about 6:30, and slept until about 10. So I had a restful time which I needed after the short night. When she got up, I let her wake up gradually, as sudden wakings are not her thing. Once she was all the way up, I gave her breakfast. Then I tried to sneakily read her a book, by reading it "to myself", but she caught on and threw a fit. She hates to be read to. Then we played kitties for quite a while. Mostly this is her saying things about them "The kitties are awake", "The Kitties woke up". I did something that upset her, so it made Stripe Kitty upset, and I had to hold Stripe Kitty for a long time. Janey makes sure I am holding her right, with 2 hands. I do to kitty what I would do with Janey when she is upset---sing her songs, especially When You Walk Through the Storm, and pat her. I take this chance to talk to Kitty about things that might be upsetting Janey, and Janey does listen but who knows what gets through? Then I tried a show on Disney Channel, but that was not in Janey's plan so she threw another fit. TV off. Then we had lunch. Janey then noticed a boxed present from Christmas, a Calico Critters kitchen. It has been making her upset looking at it for days. I finally decided to just open it up, as it couldn't be worse than how upset just looking at the outside of the box was making her. She was not pleased, but paid attention as I took out all the adorable pieces. A dumb present from me, I guess, but it's the kind of thing I wish she liked, and she does like the fuzzy Critters, but not the furniture, I guess. She tried to eat the play toast, I think it's not that she thinks it's real but it's a way of showing how mad she is. After a while with me playing and her whimpering and watching, she started saying "I'm stuck! I'm stuck!" which means she is upset about something and it's stuck in her head. I put all the toys away. Now she is playing with some of the furniture I just put away. Often it's that way, I have to almost force her to try new things, and then later she likes them.

It makes me think reading this that it sounds like I am always trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to. But if I just let the day go except as she liked, it would either be (if it's a TV day) her watching TV for a long time, or more often, her repeating phrases and looking at her hands and crying. She is upset either way, so I do try to give her something new to do. It makes me so upset that I can't make her happy. I don't know what to do a lot of times. Now she is saying "Somebody stole my sock drawer! It was you! It was Ja-Cai (a boy in her class she talks about a lot"

Time to get ready for school, where she is almost always extremely happy.