Rough days

Preface: When looking for an image to go with this post, since obviously I was not in the “lets take a picture of my screaming child for my blog” mood I came across this website… weird but funny and bound to make you feel better if you’re having a bad day too, at least for a little while. Anyway, on to my day…

Days like today make me wonder about the decision of staying at home with the boys. At least in the full time nature that I am. Just like any job I know that it has it’s good days and bad days. The problem with this job is those bad days don’t end at 5:00pm. Days like today probably won’t end until close to 8:00pm.

I love my children. I love spending time with them and being with them, I love being the one to raise them and instill the morals and values of our family in them. But there really are days that a break is needed. Want to know how my day went (and it’s not over yet)?

7:20am. Landon woke up. This is sleeping in a lot for him. Usually he’s up at 5:30 – 6am. I’m thinking that it’s going to be a decent day because he got a little extra sleep in. (what was I thinking…) I knew that the day was going to be a little crazy because of a doctors appointment for Riley that was in the middle of his normal nap time, but I made plans to make that known issue easier to cope with. I was going to get him up a little early and give him a little power nap so he wasn’t cranky at the doctors and we would just make today be a 2 nap day (he still bounces back and forth between 1 and 2). Problem solved! (What was I thinking…)

We had breakfast, Brad was super sweet and made pancakes for Landon (and everyone else) which is not a normal breakfast meal on a week day. Riley woke up early on his own. I knew the day was going to go great since he was already conforming to my plan before he even knew it! (Really… what WAS I thinking…)

Landon got ready with only a minor amount of struggle and we went on a bike ride around the neighborhood and ended at the park. He met a new friend, had a good time and left without a struggle. That was 10:00am and pretty much the end of my perfect plan.

While Riley went for his mini nap I needed to put more cream on Landon’s eczema. It’s getting really bad right now and he’s starting to claw at it and make it bleed. He wanted nothing to do with it. He was watching an episode of Curious George (that usually helps to distract him) but would still not hold still for the medicine. I told him if he couldn’t hold still we would have to turn the show off. Long story full of the world ending over and over for a “poor” 3 year old little boy – the show was turned off and the major meltdown of the century including screaming and a whirlwind of some crazy something possessing my sweet little boy where pretty much everything I tried to calm him down didn’t work and just made it worse took place.

Finally after about 45 minutes of a combination of just letting him get it out of his system and distraction with our wedding pictures in the hallway (of all things….) leading into pulling out his first year’s scrapbook and looking at those pictures together he finally calmed down. It still amazes me that Riley slept through all of this.

I figured he would be good. (again… what was I thinking!) I got Riley up changed and gave him a little snack so we could be at the doctors by 11:30. I got Landon a snack to take in the car, because snacks always make things better.

Then he wanted milk.

WHY did he want milk! Things were going fine. We were on target to leave in time. Fine – I was fine with him taking some milk along. But the sippy cup he wanted was dirty. I told him that the clean one would have to work. However it wasn’t going to work in his mind. Which resulted again in the screaming and a whirlwind of some crazy something possessing my sweet little boy where pretty much everything I tried to calm him down didn’t work and just made it worse, with only 2 minutes until we had to leave or we would be late.

I filled the unwanted cup, left it on the counter and told him Riley and I were getting in the car. If he wanted milk, that was the cup to take. For some reason he didn’t like that response and the screaming and whirlwind of possession continued, however that caused Riley to start crying so now I had two varying pitches of screams and cries going on at once. At least I wouldn’t get bored with only one?

Got Riley in the car, somehow got Landon in the car – still not really sure how I did, and somehow the problematic milk (that didn’t even get touched) ended up in the car too. Super mom of the century, right?

Drove to the doctors with Landon screaming he wanted to go home, messaged Brad to meet me at the doctors to take Landon for a walk while I met with the doctor. I had no idea if Landon was going to be able to pull it together by then or not. He did, and other than the obvious appearance of tears (yeah – his face too) no one would probably have known that for the last hour and a half he was a screaming, whirling possesse (one who is possessed? Is that even a word?) of a 3 year old.

Came home, ate lunch now he’s asleep. STAY asleep. That’s part of my new plan. Part 2 of my plan (when he wakes up) is watch a long movie. Does War and Peace have a film version, that’s rated G and kid friendly? I guess Veggie Tales will have to do. I’m sure they have one out by now about not screaming for milk that you don’t really want in the first place. I’ll go google that.

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