The day should have been a pretty normal day. It wasn’t and it turned out to be a bloody nightmare. Not in a dramatic really-bad-stuff-happened kind of way, more in a things-have-escalated-to-end-up-in-a-grandiose-firework kind of way.
I took V to his first optician appointment and what was supposed to be a lovely moment after, just the two of us, when I would have taken him to buy his brother’s birthday present, followed by a tete a tete with a hot chocolate, was simply not meant to be.
Instead it was a rush back home as I couldn’t cope with him being so hyper, it was unbearable. The last time he behaved like that was such a long time ago that I thought we were passed that stage. Obviously not.
Then there was a trip to the supermarket on my own, which turned out to be my best moment of the day as I managed to spend one hour on my own without anyone nagging.
There I bought red noses, because we try to support good causes and they are fun too.
Fast forward to about one hour ago when I thought that it could be lovely to take a photo with the boys wearing the noses. I get them to sit in front of the fireplace, their hair was kind of looking ok and they were dressed for once, not in their pyjamas. It all began then, you know, the firework…
E decided the nose was crap and he couldn’t breathe with it.
To which I reminded that for the purpose of the photo he could consider breathing from his mouth for a couple of minutes.
To which he pretty much stomped out of the room, throwing the nose in the bin. The nose I had just bought.
To which I shouted in a I-had-enough-of-all-this-crap tone of voice that if he was going to be so ungrateful then he wouldn’t get any birthday presents on Monday (unrealistic) because he didn’t deserve them. AND that maybe the Wii should be taken away FOREVER (totally unrealistic) as surely other more grateful kids would be happy to have it.
Then followed the tears and the “I don’t love you anymore“. The first time it washed over me, I know that it doesn’t really mean “I don’t love you” but more “I freaking hate you Mother!”. I can deal with that.
But then after he sobbed and sobbed and I started feeling sorry for him so I called him to discuss what had happened. He stomped back to me and then told me again he doesn’t love me. Ok I got the picture and that started to bother me a bit. When it came to the point when he requested to go to another family I cried.
I became totally unreasonable at that stage and told him I would help him find another family.
I SAID that!
I totally played on the emotional string and it didn’t work as when I asked him if he was sure he wanted another family 10 min later he was just about to go and pack his bag…
I am all for the parent is the adult and should behave like one. But when the parent feels like a broken child for a minute what do you do?
Of course I felt guilty and totally heart broken especially when he told me he no longer wanted to go to London for a birthday day out as planned for a long time.
But then dinner time arrived, things settled, we hugged, apologised and came bath time.
There, totally unprompted and out of the blue, came this beautiful message and it is even more special that the spelling mistake just proves he did it all by himself.
Being a parent is the most awesome job in the world…
