Little irritations

I've been feeling irritated lately about little things concerning M. The other day I was at work talking to my co-worker who has 3 grown sons. One of them had just regained his drivers' license after recovering from a head injury. I was talking with my co-worker about how he was doing, and she said, "I'm actually kind of annoyed at him right now. I reminded him this morning that he needs to call his insurance company, and he says, "I know, mother", in a very irritated voice.

That made me realize that M does that a lot. And she's just an 8 yo, not a young adult! Her dad will say, "Ok when we get home, you're gonna hafta walk Rufus." "I know!", she says, not in an irritated tone, but in her "little miss know-it-all" voice. I find it dismissive and annoying, but S doesn't seem to mind.

Another thing that bothers me is how she'll fall asleep in the back seat of the car, and it's virtually impossible short of screaming at her to get her to wake up and get out of the car on her own. Of course, we don't and won't scream at her. And I understand that if it's late at night, she's probably just exhausted. Her dad carries her in and puts her in bed. But lately, my fiance and I have been going on shopping trips to get our bridal registry in order. And I do understand that little kids will get tired when they're being dragged around shopping. So she falls asleep in the backseat on the way home. But she's not asleep for that long, and when we pull in the driveway, she will not wake up. I guess I have a suspicion that she could wake up if she wanted to, but would rather pretend to be asleep so that she'll get carried. And its that attitude that irritates me.

Fiance used to always lift her out of the car, put her in a standing position, and gently coax her awake. Recently, because he's been getting tired of carrying around a 55 lb 8 yo, if it's in the afternooon, he just leaves her in the car. She'll come in later complaining that he left her out there, and he just says, "Well, I figured when you're hot enough, you'll come in." Hopefully, that'll teach her. If not, I'll tell her that if she continues to have such a hard time waking up, that could be a sign of menningitis. So, we'll have to take her to the hospital and have some tests run on her that require her to have an IV stuck in her, to make sure she doesn't have it. I'm sure that will motivate her to wake up when her name is called, as she hates needles.