Raising Laila

Chapter 19 - Promises

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i hope you know that you are brave, capable and significant even when it feels like you're not

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February 10, 2018: 11.48am. 

"Laila Grace! I swear if you leave this room right now, you're going straight back in the corner for the third time this morning!" Jade scolded from the door of the kitchen. 

She wasn't quite sure what was wrong with Laila this morning but it was as if she was on a personal mission to cause trouble and drive Jade round the bend! She got it, Laila was struggling she just didn't know what to do with herself but this was too much. 

Jade sighed, she wished she could have the sweet, innocent little girl back of this time last year who never got in trouble and just wanted to play with her toys and go to the playground but she knew that this was inevitable, Laila was struggling, testing the boundaries to see how far she could push all while she was working out a lot of complicated emotions. 

Laila stopped just outside the kitchen door, turned her body around to face Jade. Jade could tell by her face that she was upset, but the defiance also evident proved to her that she wasn't going to stop and give in now. Defiantly she stuck her tongue out at Jade with her arms crossed before turning and storming out of the room towards the downstairs playroom. 

"Laila Thirlwall! Don't you-" Jade started following after her. 

"NO! I HATE YOU!" Laila yelled, kicking the wall with her princess-sock wearing feet and storming into the playroom where Jade heard a couple of crashes before she decided to step in. 

Jade quickly stepped towards the room, being able to feel the anger bubbling inside her. But she bit her tongue she knew if she said too much now she'd regret it. 

'Its not her fault, its not her fault' Jade found herself repeated over and over in her head to calm her anger. It wasn't just this incident but the three others already this morning! 

"Laila, you've got ten minutes to calm yourself down and then I want you to go and sit in the naughty corner in the kitchen until I tell you to move little lady," Jade scolded waiting for a second outside the playroom, but moving back into the kitchen when she heard nothing. 

Jade was desperate, at her wit's end with Laila and this morning was just pushing her straight over the edge, first it was going through her things while she was still asleep, then it was pushing the kitchen chair on the floor when Jade wouldn't let her have marshmallows in her cereal and now this. She was used to the defiance but all this in one day! 

She was desperate to find some way to improve the behaviour. She couldn't take Laila on tour with this behaviour constantly, it was embarrassing in front of the girls but with the high profile tour and constant paparazzi, she didn't want to look like she couldn't control the six year old. 

February 10, 2018: 8.12am. 

Jade was fast asleep. Laila was not. In fact she was wide awake and had been for just over an hour, at first she had stuck to the quiet toys in her bedroom; some dolls and teddy bears but now she was bored and figured since Jade wasn't awake she couldn't get in trouble for whatever she chose to play with... 

So quietly she tiptoed out of her bedroom, she didn't want Jade to wake up! and moved into the hallway. She thought about for a moment before deciding to go left, the opposite way to Jade's bedroom, there was a bathroom and two other guest bedrooms, so not a lot of toys but Laila was sure she would find something. 

Slowly she crept into the first bedroom, it was beautifully decorated and really slept in, but Jade used it as a storage for some of her more expensive, award show clothes and make up. Which Laila immediately saw as an excuse for dress up.