This morning I was up at 6:45 a.m. or so, which wouldn't be so bad, but at 2:00 a.m. M woke me up having a crying spell. Then G needed to pee around 4:00, which wasn't a problem, except then the thunder kept him up, requiring me to squeeze into his twin bed. I fell asleep and woke around 5:30 with a terrible backache due to cramped sleeping quarters. And then G was up for good at 6:45.
Not the worst night of sleep ever recorded, but certainly not a great one either.
At a little after 7:00 a.m., M began throwing a tantrum over....well I don't even know what it was about. Did I take away the apple he was using as a ball? Did I refuse to let him have a third Buzz Lightyear vitamin (since 2 is the daily limit)? Did I strap him into the booster seat because during his tantrum he kept pulling on my pajama pants and head-butting me? All of the above?
After M's tantrum, G decided to throw a tantrum because I gave M a Cars bandaid, even though G thinks that he gets dibs on both the Spiderman bandaids and the Cars bandaids. G was given a time-out in his room, which was fine except for the part where I had to half carry/half drag G up the steps and gently toss set him into the bedroom.
When I looked at the clock it said 8:08 a.m. Not even a quarter past 8, and I'm ready to bolt and never come back to these two XY chromosomed idiots.
Given the boys' penchant for driving me to crazy and back on a daily basis, I may have said recently, in a fit of frustration, that one day Mommy is going to go to jail for hurting the boys when they act like rabied gorillas. Ok, there's no maybe about it; I totally said it, and somewhat meant it.
G has latched onto this and now often asks me, as he did this morning while M was pitching a fit but before G pitched his own, if I was gonna go to jail. He asked, "Mommy, are you fusterated?" Sometimes after he's gotten up for the 11th time after being put to bed and can see the steam coming out of my ears, he'll say, "Mommy, I don't want you to go to jail."
While I'm certainly not proud of having mentioned the jail thing and think it drops my scores in the Mom of a Lifetime contest, I also don't necessarily think it is a bad thing for the kids to understand that mommy does get frustrated and that their behavior is quite often the cause of it. Maybe it is not such a bad thing that my saying the jail thing gets him thinking that maybe some parents do end up in jail for hurting their kids.
I don't want him to feel scared or insecure or doubt my love for him, but I also think kids also need to learn respect and kindness and that their behavior does have consequences for themselves and others. It is certainly up to me to control my behavior and not end up in jail, but when dealing with completely or mostly irrational little people with very basic communication skills and no or limited bowel control, jail sometimes sounds like a mini holiday.
I jest. (sorta)
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