Well, I knew today wasn't going to be quite right from the moment Bennett woke me up at 4 o'clock this morning telling me there was a bad guy in the guest room (in his imagination) and that he needed to sleep with me. I don't know how he maneuvers through the house in the total darkness of night and finds his way to my side of the bed. But, his skill is surprising. Then, in the loudest voice he can muster up he yells "MOM, I CAN"T SEE WU (you)" right into my sleeping ear. My heartbeat awakens me going triple time. When I realize where I am, who I am and who's yelling at me I finally pull him into the shelter of our bed. Whew, disaster number one averted for today.
Then we all awaken around 7:15am and I tell them today's "plan". We have to have a "plan" everyday, you see...it goes back to my anal retentiveness in Gavin's early developing years when each hour of our day used to be planned. I informed them that we would be meeting Grandma at a store so we all needed to eat, get dressed and go in a little less than two hours. That is quite a feat in itself - but I was optimistic. I was able to feed Chloe and still have a whole 30 minutes to get myself ready. I come out ready to go and Gavin gives me the sweetest compliment. He says "Mom, you should wear that the next time you go out on a date or to a wedding with Daddy". I was touched - even though I was only wearing an old sundress with flip flops.
We make it to the store with little event. However, Bennett decides to pull a temper tantrum the entire time we are at the store. I am extremely flustered and can't concentrate because I know all the other people around me are thinking "she needs to get control of that child". The temper miraculously stops once we get back in the car and we make it home in one piece. I'm really starting to 'loose my cool' though. Once we get home, I realize I've been wearing my dress backwards for the past 3 hours!
I continue to wear it backwards at home because here, obviously no one cares whether I'm dressed correctly or not (thankfully) or when Gavin complimented me earlier he could have also mentioned the whole backwards thing. But he often wears his clothes backwards, so no wonder that little error got over-looked on his part.
We proceed to lunch and Bennett is just driving me crazy at this point with his constant whining and fidgeting at the table. Finally, I yell at him to sit on his bottom, or else. A little while later Gavin asks me, "Mom, you know when you yelled at Bennett to sit on his bottom...don't you think you could have handled that better?" Either he really does hear everything I tell him in regards to handling his frustration or he enjoys giving me a taste of my own medicine. Now that I was completely humbled for not "practicing what I preach", I had to apologize to Bennett for yelling and admit that I have not been handling my frustration very well today.
Then out of the blue, Gavin comes and gives me a hug (which I normally have to beg for). I asked him why he hugged me. He said he could tell I was frustrated. Then a light went off in my head. I realized that sometimes when they're frustrated, maybe all they need or want is for Mommy to just come and give them a hug instead of a lecture. I know it helped me.
