Routine, Routine, Routine

It was an interesting and exhausting weekend. Kalisha had several things that knocked her out of her routine. She has been coping with those kinds of things pretty well, but this evidently was NOT the weekend for it.
It all started a few weeks ago when someone stole her I-pod. She was in a panic to get a new one. I took her to Best Buy, but they don't make the slim nano anymore. The new one was $279. Good Grief!!! Out of her price range, which frustrated her, because she needed a replacement right now.
She came home and started checking E-Bay. She found one for $129; new, purple, USB cord, earbuds, the whole enchilada. She bought it, using PayPal, and although the seller stated that he would ship within 5 business days, she started checking the next day to see if it had been shipped.
Once it was shipped, she checked the tracking number at least every 2 hours to see where it was. It  was coming from TX, so I told her it wasn't going to be here in a day.
It did come quickly by Priority Mail and she loaded all 500+ songs onto it. The next day she asked me how to get a scratch off of the front screen. I knew we were in trouble. I saw a very small mark but didn't think it was a scratch. Kalisha Googled 'how to remove a scratch' and wanted to immediately go to Wal-Mart to buy some product they recommended. She got on the bus and went to Best Buy first. There she talked to a Geek Squad person who told her it wasn't a scratch (same thing I told her...maybe I'm not a professional Geek) but that it was a water mark.
I tried to rationalize this with her. "Kalisha, it is a very, very small mark. It doesn't affect the I-Pod at all. If you send it back, you will be a long time without your I-Pod."
She agreed, but e-mailed the seller anyway. I was pretty sure that he wasn't going to refund or replace, but of course, I was wrong. He agreed to replace it.
She removed all of her songs, but made one small mistake and removed them all from her computer, too.  More misery!
Kalisha doesn't function very well in extreme heat and it has been in the upper 90s for several days. We went to watch her nephew's baseball game on Sunday morning (she had the option to stay home, because there is no shade) Even with an umbrella over us, she was very uncomfortable and ready to be back home in the AC. We usually attend church on Sunday morning; another routine disrupted.
My daughter and her 4 children live next door. Their AC quit working, so they were in and out of our house trying to get cool. Not our usual Sunday afternoon.
Then it was decided that 3 of the kids would sleep here on Sunday night. That was the last straw for Kalisha! Her morning routine is to get dressed, eat her cereal, lay back down on the couch and sleep for a few hours, then get up and read her books out loud in the red chair in the living room. AND...on Monday mornings, her BC (behavioral consultant) comes at 8:30 and they talk for an hour in the living room w/o interruption.
She started saying "You can't be here in the morning. I know you will still be asleep on the floor and the couch at 8:30 in the morning." "I don't want you here in the morning." She repeated this many times.
Finally, I told her that I would make sure they were up and gone by 8:30, so please be quiet about it. She kept at it until I threatened to send her to her room, which I have not done for a very long time. It wasn't 2 minutes before she was whispering, " I know you won't be gone. I don't want you to hear what Carrie and I talk about."
There are other places for she and Carrie to go to talk; deck, front porch, etc. BUT, they always set in the living room.
I realize that it is very hard for her to change her routine; darn near impossible, in fact. But the fact remains that occasionally, we all (even people who find it very difficult) have to learn to adapt a little bit, especially when it is necessary for the good of someone else.
I reassured her, promised her, that there would be NO ONE in the living room when Carrie arrived. (Even if I had to drag them out by their hair)
The I-Pod, the heat, missing church, extra people in our house---it has been a trying few days for Kalisha!
The good news: The I-Pod has been sent back and now she will start checking the website to see when it gets there, so  she can start tracking it on its way back to Indiana.