Parenting sucks right now

Hannah is sucking the joy right out of me almost daily with her new tude of "leave me alone I'm all drown up". The last half of this summer has consisted of drama, drama and more drama all from Hannah and her friends. Her friends are always here, they eat my food and leave messes behind, have fights with each other here, come to me for first aid (more often than you'd think), trash the house, couldn't stay quiet if I paid them. Of course Hannah is right in the middle of all this encouraging it.

On Wed she was going to meet a friend downtown for lunch at a restaurant she works at and then go to the mall. She was doing all of this on the bus but did ask if I'd pick her up from the mall. Getting her from the mall wasn't a problem with me and frankly I was a little happy because her boyfriend wasn't in on this outing. They are practically glued at the hips. I was glad she was doing something without him. So fast forward many hours and I get a call, it's Hannah. They missed the last bus and can I give Jessica a ride home when they get to our house (they offered to walk here). Jessica has no other way home since her grandma has no car so even though I didn't really wanna drive to her house I said ok. An hour later in walk the two girls and the two Austins. I said right away you didn't tell me they were with you as well and she just kinda laughs it off. It's not that I really cared who she was at the mall with or walking with (I could do without her boyfriend but that's me), I just did not think it was very nice of her to say her and Jessica were coming and then show up with the boys as well without even a heads up. It's freakin annoying. SO then they all proceed to the computer room where they are really loud, knocking each other off chairs, sitting on each other on chairs, screaming at times, knocked over the kittens food and water, knocked over some games and cards (into the water)and droping their drink cans and bottle on the floor where they left them. Then Hannah realises I made brownies and asks if they can have one. I told her they could each have one. It was a big 9 * 13 pan of them and the kids and I had only had one each, 3/4 of a pan was there still. When they got done (4 people) 1 1/2 was left! That really pissed me off because I had promised the other kids they could have another one later and that was just rudely piggish of them. Hannah knows better about all of this and her friends know better as well. I've also told her a bunch of times that she is held responsible for her guest behavior so she need to remind them of the rules or face the consequences for them. I ended up taking Jessica home with all of the kids in my van, that was annoying. I hadn't found the mess or brownie pan until we got back. At that point I exploded. Actually I think I controlled myself well. Her boyfriend was here but I really didn't care how embarrassed she was at that point. I told her everything that was wrong and that she was grounded for three days and would spend the next day cleaning the whole house because she was behaving like an ass. I might add that JT has been gone all week and she hasn't lifted a finger to even put her stuff away let alone anything else without me yelling at her first.

So now she has been grounded and she did do all the work I gave her that day but then proceeded to drop her personal stuff all over the house again and leave it there. Fast forward to this morning. I get up and all the little kids are up and doing loud messy things. Dishes, toys, clothes and trash are all over the house from the day before and a glass of something sticky is spilled on the coffee table and everyone has ignored it. There were six baskets of clean laundry lining the hallway that nobody had even thought to try and fold or put away. It defiantly did not make me smile at all. I cleaned up the coffee table, had the kids pick up there projects have breakfast and get dressed. While this was happening Hannah got up. I decided that since nobody wanted to help clean the house then they could all take their butts outside until I was done. At least that way I'd have some peace. I included the everybody to mean Hannah as well and let her know. About 20 minutes later she comes to me and says she needs to take a shower first. Uhm no her shower time is at night because her showers are 45 minutes long! So she argues with me and stomps away mad. Then she says she has nothing to do outside I said take a book. Nobody else was arguing with me even though Jason really wanted to be on the computer instead of outside and Hailey wanted to do art. So another 20 minutes or o passes and the others are outside, Hannah comes to me all dressed with a bookbag and tells me I'm going shopping". She's really lucky she has a head right now cause I wanted to pop it right off at that point. I had to remind her that she was grounded and couldn't go anywhere so no she was not going shopping at all, she was going to the yard. She then tells me it's not fair she'll have nothing to do and she is not a kid. Can you imagine the flame coming out my butt by this point. I was getting really pissed. Told her she was a child, she acted like a child so I treat her like a child and to get her butt outside NOW. I cleaned the whole house and then had all the kids come in and fold the laundry while I watched.

Then tonight Hannah is reading over some school papers that came and she starts to get very arrogant that they messed up because one of her classes isn't listed on the papers. I told her she is in the class, I have her schedule, not to panic. She tells me no I'm not, show me where on here it is. I look at the part of the paper that has the schedule listed and tell her it looks like it's just the first semester list I look at the rest in a few minutes. She still goes on about how it's messed up and goes back to reading the papers. Later I look at them and the first sentence of the paragraph proceeding the schedule says it is the fall schedule. I pointed this out to her and told her she needed to work on reading things all the way though before assuming things. She told me to just stop being down on her because I've been doing it all day. Well really what does she expect me to do just ignore her behavior or her words? So I continue to talk to her and agree that I have been lecturing her a lot and with reason. I'm talking she's rolling her eyes, cuts me off, tells me to stop, that I need to notice her trying to be responsible, organized and what not. When I told her to do it for more than five minutes at a shot and I would she rolled her eyes again (someday I'm gonna duct tape them in place I swear) and walks off. I told her she was grounded for two more days for being rude and walking off. She argued I added another day.

I'm realistic on the grounding. She's only grounded from going anywhere without the family, me or to a babysitting job, and from having anybody over here. She still has her phone and the computer so she's not dying by far but I bet she thinks I'm the mean wicked witch.

I know what is going on. She's having growing pains. She thinks she is independent, has "her own life", that I am interfering with my rules and expectations. She's figuring since she is getting school independent of me and maybe even getting to go onto the public school campus that she's all grown now and I should just leave her alone and let her do her thing like she was and adult. Problem is if she was an adult and acted this way I'd kick her ass out! Adults take responsibility, they behave courteously towards others and when they don't they get called an ass and if they live with others and behave like an ass they soon find themselves looking for solo accommodations. Not to mention adults don't call mommy to take their friends home!

Parenting is just really hard right now. It's hard to always be the enforcer. I'm tired of her pushing and pushing and pushing. I want a break. I want things to level off and for her to stop being such a brat right now. It would be much easier and less frustrating and even saddening to just give in to her but it would be right or good in the long run. Oh it'd be nice if she stopped treating her brothers and sister like shit as well.