As a parent, there are humbling experiences or moments that slightly alter your perspective of the world or change your parenting philosophies...little things like finally giving your first baby the pacifier you vowed you would not use in the hospital after they cry for two hours straight...
Then...
There are experiences that violently take you down a few notches in your self-perceived parenting mastery...where you have to accept that you have absolutely no control of some situations.
I fell from the top of my parenting ladder Thursday morning where I had previously viewed myself as the hard-ass disciplinarian in household...the parent/teacher that was never going to have the child that ruled the roost...
It started out bad when at 6:30 am AJ rolled over as I woke him up and said matter-a-factly, "AJ's house today mom."...as in he wasn't going to daycare that day. Well, I am the parent and it wasn't really an option for him to stay at "AJ's house", so I informed him that he needed to get up and get dressed for the day. He responded with an angry, "NO!" and covered back up. From there it escalated into a battle to get him dressed. It is 7:00 now...20 minutes behind schedule...the time I am usually pulling into the drive to drop him off at daycare. Although neither one of us sustained any battle wounds from getting him dressed...we were both pretty worked up. My head was pounding, I'd already burned through my deodorant for the day before I had even left the house, and I was imagining my neighbor calling either the police or social services after hearing AJ's screams....and he was still refusing to leave the house. Are you kidding me?!
I picked up my kicking, screaming child up as he violently flailed his arms and legs around. At that point, I called Andy out of desperation and in tears seeking advice. Andy says just put him in the car seat and go. HA! If only it were that easy! Okay, deep breathe...regroup...try to put AJ in his car seat...
just to be faced with more kicking, screaming, hitting, and the arching his back thing making it impossible to get him into his car seat.
I call Andy a second time and like my knight in shining armor he says, "I'm on my way." Andy comes home from work to take the kids to daycare, I call work to make plans with a teammate in case I don't make it in by the time school starts, and I finally get to leave for work over an hour late....I was exhausted and defeated before the day even started.
I never thought I would be the parent that surrendered to the two and a half year old, but Thursday morning someone had to give in...either me or AJ...
There are just some moments that are truly out of your control before you even start. It didn't matter that I had breakfast ready to go the night before or everyone's clothes set out or the "perfect" morning routine...I was not prepared for or above the almighty force of an irrational child.
Friday morning I woke up dreading what was ahead of me, holding my breathe, praying for a smooth morning, and walking on egg shells...
AJ turned over in his bed with a smile on his face before he even opened his eyes and the morning ran like clockwork...even ahead of schedule enough for a Starbucks and doughnut...
I don't get it...what makes one day so traumatic and the next so smooth?...
