When I got home tonight, I greeted Mike and Oli as usual and we started making dinner. Mike informed me that he and Olivia had had a great chat on the way home about good behavior and being a good listener. Oli confirmed this by saying "Tonight I get to take a bubble bath!" I felt so happy that he had talked with her to help make tonight a little better.
As the night has gone on, she's been getting more and more "testy." Not bad, just testy. Tonight definitely is going better than last night but I can just tell that we are about to end up in a scene from Gremlins any minute. At any rate, she started to throw some goldfish crackers on the ground and when she refused to pick them up I asked, "Are we going to have a repeat from last night?"
Mike was in another room working and overheard this and came in. He asked what was going on and I showed him. He's been hanging on to every word between Oli and me this evening and I thought that was kind of strange. I'm sure psych patients are watched this closely. Again, I felt so happy that Mike was really keeping an eye on Olivia and her behavior. So when I told him that Olivia was throwing things around the kitchen he asked her, "Do you remember what we talked about today?" She nodded her head in agreement. "We talked about how you need to keep mom happy. If mommy isn't happy, none of us will be happy."
"IS THAT WHAT YOU 'CHATTED' ABOUT THIS EVENING???"
He smiled and nodded at me, clearly proud of himself. At first I felt a little offended. WHY would The Boss Lady's behavior the night before suddenly be about me and keeping me happy? Why couldn't her good behavior tonight just be because not acting like a psycho is the right thing to do? Why should Oli and Mike have to cater to me to keep me from losing it? I'm not the one who was throwing myself on the floor and screeching like a banshee for half an hour last night. I mean, I'm not sayin' I've never done it. I'm just sayin' it wasn't me last night. That's beside the point though. I felt a little like I was being treated like I was the unstable one and somehow if I was "unhappy" then all hell would break loose. The whole night I thought he was watching her for signs of insanity but I'm pretty sure now he was watching me!!!!
But then I thought about it: If THEY think THEIR happiness is contingent upon MY happiness, this is really a Win for me. Big time. So instead of saying to Mike and Oli all that I was thinking in the paragraph above, I just looked at both of them lovingly, smiled, and said, "Damn straight. And don't forget it."
New Family Motto: If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
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