Well today was another 'learning experience' I suppose. I'll file it under 'truly awful days', build a bridge and get over it but let me tell you child-free people that when parents say that parenting is no picnic and no walk in the park that they are spot on. Today I had a moment of 'I have no idea what I'm doing, but I hope this works' towards everything I did.
Roman has perfected his spitting technique. Just today he was biting large chunks of his roll and then spitting them out in front of the mirror, laughing uncontrollably as he went. He quickly finished up his drink and began spitting into the fresh drink. He then tried to spit on me in the bed. "Don't do that, it's really dirty. It's very unhygienic to spit," I told him and he gave me a look of 'yeah, whatever you say, lady.'
I also had some difficulty with him at bed time - maybe the worst struggle I've had with him, ever. I can take a child who wakes up in the middle of the night, I can take a teething 10 month old and give me a sick baby any day of the week but the one thing I don't get is the child that fights sleep, when they're so obviously tired. He'd been begging to go to bed, as well as missing a nap, and I thought my ship had well and truly come in. Bryan was out, there was a good programme coming on TV (Big Bang Theory, if you must know) and I'd been feeling queasy all day so I was looking forward to a hassle free bed time. Think again.
He kept trying to climb out of bed - don't think I ever want to move to a single bed, ever, ever - and when I'd had enough of his shenanigans I simply walked out of the room. He put up a good protest for an hour; full on screaming at first, then gentle singing and then full on tears. When the tears came I checked him. He still wouldn't settle and opted for grabbing fistfuls of my hair and pulling out chunks of it - my head still hurts where he grabbed it. I got very annoyed at this point and felt my anger surfacing, so left his room feeling very guilty and sore. All hell broke loose in his room then he suddenly went quiet the minute Bryan stepped in the door and has been quiet ever since. I've felt bad about the way I left things but I could feel the struggle building into one angry crescendo and ultimately I made the bigger and better choice by walking away...yet it doesn't feel that way at all.
I hope that I don't have a challenge like that again, yet I know I will. I just hope it happens in the very, very distant future. Until then I will make a record of it and move on.
