Snapped

Saturday was.... um.... hmm.

Yeah that.

Despite getting minimal sleep during the night (home remedy my ass), I was up and ready to for Girl's game at 6 am. Too bad the game didn't start until 9 am. The girls cheered while the team was massacred, their first loss. I found it hard to concentrate as Hurricane was with me and Mr X was at work and Hurricane decided to play How Loud Can I Scream? until I thought I would just snap. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. He preferred the company of two of the moms. Absolute strangers to him and completely unarmed of cookies. He cooed and smiled and sang with them while I pretended to be watching the game.
Traitor.
The game ended and we trudged back to the van. Hurricane waved and shouted 'bye-bye' to all of his new friends. As soon as we were out of eyesight, he returned to his earlier game. I think he's trying to see if he can break glass. Or me.
By 1:00, it was me.
I was shaking, Girl was cleaning up the living room and trying so hard to be helpful and Hurricane was pulling on my legs and screaming, which he had been doing since we got home.
He was simply inconsolable. Not hungry, not tired (already had a nap dammit), not wet, don't want to read, don't want to play, don't want to not read and play, want want want, no no no.
I had been tugged and pulled all over the house, fake cheerful smiles and gritted teeth. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad had this not been day 3 of said behavior and I had even one decent nights sleep out of those 3 nights.
I unhinged his little claws from my knee and locked myself in the bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face and admitted that I needed a break before I went ape shit bananas again and started eating my hair.
When I stepped back out, Girl had popped in Hurricane's favorite movie and set him on her bed. His favorite reward and not something she lets him do very often. She smiled at me and curled up next to him. He settled and laughed at Nemo flashing across the screen.
Sometimes despite, or maybe because of, our distance, her maturing, her asserting her independence, I get to see just how cool she is.

It's things like this, taking care of her brother, sticking up for me, offering to help her dad, these things make it possible to overlook the sweatpants she stuffed in my treadmill rather than putting away. Or the fact that I found an ungodly amount of candy wrappers in her nightstand drawer. Or that she keeps insisting that I'm lame.