Oh, the drama!

I’m emotionally drained. The Boy and I had a big fight tonight, words were said, food was mushed about, and feelings were hurt all around.

 I still don’t know where I messed up. We were having dinner, The Husband wasn’t home yet cause he had gone into work and lost track of time as usual. When he finally called me to tell me he was on his way home, The Boy started getting upset, I think he thought that The Husband was back in the hospital. I explained several times that he was on his way home. So The Boy eats his first dish of pasta and asks for another, halfway through the second dish he loses interest and asks for his binky. Ok, I think, I don’t like it when he leaves food, but he ate plenty and is tired so I won’t push it, and I get out his fruit. With his new tigger spoon (I got him a new Winnie the Pooh cutlery set). This is when things start spiraling out of control. He decides to eat his pureed fruit with his hands (basically sticking all his fingers in the pot and licking them). I tell him that’s not a great way to eat, to please pick up his spoon or I will ignore him until he does. And I turn and keep eating my dinner… The next time I turn around he’s scooped out half the fruit with his fingers and is spreading it all over his high chair tray. I flipped out. “What are you doing?” I scream. “Look at the mess, the waste”, “No, no!” all the while rushing around the kitchen getting a sponge, paper towels etc. And he looks at me and laughs. And then he reaches for the fruit pot again. So I smacked him upside the head (well, it was more of a tap). Knee jerk reaction. Of course he starts screaming and crying like I just killed him, so I say “That’s it, I’m not talking to you until you stop crying and eat your fruit”. Screaming escalates and is punctuated by pathetic whimpers of “Papai” (daddy). So now I feel horribly guilty, was he being a pain because he was worried The Husband wasn’t coming home? did I misread this whole thing? But I don’t want to give in, cause what if he’s just playing me…  So I let him off his highchair, but I’m still ignoring him, he hasn’t eaten his fruit, of course, and he goes off to the Nanny to tell her that he and I just had a fight, hee, hee. Then Daddy comes home and all is right in his world. Of course, I’m still ignoring him, but this phases him not one bit. I go upstairs with The Girl, to put her to bed, and I’m all upset cause The Boy doesn’t love me, plus he didn’t eat his fruit, and you better not treat me this way when you get older, The Girl.

Cut to later, The Girl’s sleeping, The Boy’s taking his bath with The Husband and I hear this conversation: “are you upset Mama’s mad at you?”, “no” a little later as The Husband is explaining how I was right and The Boy shouldn’t play with his food, cause Mama loves him and wants what’s best for him, and Mama’s always nice and pretty The Boy answers with “noooooo, Mama ugly”. And that’s when my heart breaks. Anyway, after his bath, The Husband brings him to say goodnight to me and asks him who he wants to put him to bed. “Mama”. And all is right In my world again.

So tonight I went through about 100 different emotions in this approximate order: happiness, surprise, anger, rage, guilt, sadness, self righteousness, heartbreak and elation.

And I wonder why. This is my conclusion,  I was worried cause The Husband wasn’t home yet and wasn’t answering his phone, so I was tense and when The Boy did a perfectly normal thing for a two year old I lost it and things escalated. All this to say that we, as parents, need to be so careful of what we do and say, and how we react, cause we can avoid most ridiculous situations if we’re just paying attention. Which tonight I clearly was not.

I posted on fb that The Boy and I had a fight tonight and words were said, and a friend asked if we were broken up. That’s kind of how it felt, we had a fight and broke up, then we talked to our friends who tried to convince us to get back together, then the whole ‘he said, she said’, and then we got back together. Basically, tonight I went back to High School for a while, and The Boy’s just two.