Yesterday was One Of Those Days where both kids seemed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. J in a period where she’s prone to short tantrums and wanting/not wanting to do something at the same time. M is a handful; he’s got a lot of energy, is very anal retentive and doesn’t like being by himself much. When he’s having a bad day, I feel emotionally exhausted by noon. Time takes on new meaning – 2pm translates to Please let the next 7-9 hours zoom by.

I got through yesterday, even helping avert a potential meltdown late in the evening. M wanted to watch a specific documentary and could only provide 2 details, which I had to Google. It was around 8pm and he was clearly overtired and I managed to remember that I have the ability to be patient. My showing frustration wouldn’t help at all and would inevitably make things worse. It took about 20 minutes of discussion, much of it with M holding back tears, clearly frustrated at wanting something but not knowing exactly what it was. I finally figured it out, and he was wrong on one of the details. There are lots of documentaries with computer generated dinosaurs and such and they all seem to run together at times.

What got me through yesterday was everything I’ve been reading in Parenting a Free Child, and some words of wisdom posted at The Parenting Pit. I think I should read the little poem from The Parenting Pit weekly, or anytime I need to focus on the big picture.

The end result was M coming to me after the documentary, seemingly back to his normal self. He wanted to watch one more thing before going to sleep. I told said I was very sleepy and needed to listen to my body to rest, but could watch one short documentary. He not only wanted to watch something but wanted to cooperate with me on the decision. After deciding and starting the show, he turned it off after 10 minutes, busted out his new Lite Brite and we had some fun creating some beautiful images together. It was so nice that I pretty much forgot about my stress and exhaustion throughout the day.