My daughter is a whiner.

My daughter is now attempting to practice guitar for the first time in a month, and she is really making it a bitch. She has class tomorrow, so I told her to start practicing last night because she hasn't done it at all these last few weeks of vacation, and she plunks a couple of notes before wailing, "I can't remember anything." My big mistake was trying to reason with her. I told her to go back to some of the older stuff that she's played a million times so that her fingers could get back in the groove of it and sort of jump start her memory. But she was determined to whine, and utterly convinced that she didn't remember how to play guitar. Anyway, I told her to wait until her father came home to help her (he reads music and I don't), but that didn't happen because we had a dinner date with friends last night. So she's trying to practice now and telling my husband that she's lost and she doesn't understand what he's trying to tell her. It probably wouldn't be sooooooo bad if she weren't literally whining. You know, those pathetic sort of noises kids make when they're complaining about something. She just did it again and it's all I can do to keep from flying off the handle. I HATE it when kids whine and my first impulse is always to smack them. I particularly hate it when my daughter whines because it means she's not even trying and that infuriates me more than anything. I probably shouldn't be admitting these things because now a world of strangers will think I'm an abusive mother, but what are ya gonna do? While I'm confessing my sins, let me tell you what I did earlier this evening. My daughter had a loose tooth that she finally agreed to let us pull out. My husband's preferred tool is pliers. So he yanks that sucker out and I tell her to rinse and spit until I can bring down some gauze for her to bite on to stop the bleeding. One of the things I didn't mention about while we were on vacation was that my mother stayed at our house to watch our dog. She took that opportunity to completely clean and reorganize my house. (Something she knows I don't like her doing.) So I went up to the linen closest and couldn't find the gauze, but I did see my box of tampons. And that's when the wheels started turning. Tampons are made to staunch bleeding and, surely, they're sterile because women shove them up their cooches. That technically makes them a medical supply. So I took one out and removed the applicator and took the cotton down to my daughter and told her to put it in her mouth and bite down. She asked me what it was and I told her it was something specifically made to stop bleeding. I have to admit it was a little funny to see her walk around with the tampon string hanging out of her mouth. And that's how we mothers get back at our children for whining. I should have taken a picture.