Good Day?

I was super nervous as I drove to school to pick the babe up today.  Would I be having another "meeting" with the babe's new teacher?  Please, please, please let today be a good day.

I entered the school and the babe was already waiting for me.  She ran to me screaming her happy "Mama!"  Then she told me she was a good girl at school today.  I looked up to scan the various school official's faces.  They checked in with the babe's teacher who was busy with some other kids.  She nodded and said that they had had a good day.  The babe was good.  I was happy.  So off to the park we went to celebrate.  Yes, it was literally 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but we needed to play on the monkey bars, dammit!

Things went mostly OK (I did receive some attitude from the babe about my pushing technique on the swings) and we had a good 'oll sweaty time. The air conditioned car ride home was a big change from yesterday's.

I felt good and was psyched to tell my husband about the babe and her behavior.  And things WERE good until 15 minutes before my husband got home.  The little guy hurt himself (AGAIN) and I went to help him out (he was screaming in pain and bleeding, after all).  The babe started screaming, "I'm JEALOUS!!!!" and when I told her to calm down and that I was helping her brother she proceeded to throw a few things at me.  They were inconsequential, all except the last one...a large purple "Little People" car that smashed against my foot.  I screamed in pain and in shock and dragged her (while carrying the crying and bleeding little guy) to the stairs where I left her to scream and generally freak out.

Last night had drained the crap out of me and I was so looking forward to getting through today without any drama.  But alas, my husband came home to a bad situation.  And again, the babe was put to bed without any stories, chats, or anything special at all.  We explained the situation to her and left her to go to sleep.  We didn't hear a peep out of her and she's up there in dream land right now.  When asked if she knew why we were so upset with her, she had the right answer.  I just don't know how we are supposed to accelerate the development of the part of her brain which tells her to stop before it's too late.  I know it takes time, but her automatic response seems to be physical, and I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

Tomorrow we will continue to work on USING OUR WORDS and GIVING OUR MESSAGES.  Hopefully our persistence and attempts at patience will pay off.  Because if every week is going to be like this week, I don't know how we'll manage.  I just have to remind myself that this is just a phase and the challenges of parenthood will continue to change.  For now, I remain grateful for my family because at the end of the day, it is not that bad.