OK, here's one. My family moved in January and my sons -- ages 10 and 11 -- still hate it here. HATE IT. They nag me every day about moving back. Complain constantly. Threaten to run away. Threaten suicide. Go on hunger strike. Stop speaking. Offer me bribes. Beg me to divorce my husband so we can move without him (he has a job here).
I have done my best to be patient and sympathetic and help them find fun things to do here (including buying season passes to the public pool two blocks away!). But sometimes I just get worn down.
So today, they each wrote on their arms "172 days at Camp Suicide" in black pen and, beneath that, 172 hash marks -- one for every day they've been here. Then they spent about two hours whining about how much they hate it and how bored they are and blah blah blah ...
"Look," I finally said, "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it."
Unfortunately, they didn't ask "For how long?" because I would have had an answer for that, too -- one that would have earned me two bonus points!
Instead they just went back to whining.
