Sunday, July 5, 2009

lost my cool acting like a two year old

Kaio has been more and more of a difficult two year old lately. Last Sunday was especially bad. Around lunch time I snapped off the chain and acted like a two year old myself. I yelled at him, yelled at my man, and pretty much just lost my cool. It feels so tough sometimes. I do everything to make that boy happy, and yet he finds reasons to cry and whine. This morning when he woke up he asked for breakfast cookies - vegan, healthy, high protein and EFA "cookies" that I make often for breakfast when there is nothing fresh around. So I set him in front of Madagascar, put the baby in a safe area to crawl around, and took to making the cookies. I made him cookies, I did the laundry, I set him up to paint, I gave the baby a bath, changed her diaper, fed her and put her down for nap. Then I made play-doo characters of Kaio's favorite films, which he later squished with his little hands. And all this before 11am. That's when my man finally woke up. And when he got up, oh was I happy to see him and take the opportunity to read the news.
I forgot to eat. I got really upset about something. I think that M made me a sandwich and gave it to me without a plate and the feta cheese inside spilled on me. I went upstairs to take a nap and realized that it was almost 1 and Kaio hadn't eaten lunch yet. I started yelling at M: you sleep till 11 and then all you do is watch the history channel and make food for yourself and not for the kids. It was true, but it didn't really bother me - I just found myself yelling about it uncontrollably. I said, "I'll clean the kitchen, and do the laundry, and give the kids baths, and make them food, and take out the trash."
Kaio then came in the laundry room with me and I yelled to get out of there and leave me alone. He screamed "no!" back at me and I could tell that we were acting the same. yelling out of short tempered stubbornness and empty stomachs. When I calmed down, I was mad at myself for letting the time go by and not planning better. I mean, I should have made lunch earlier.
We had sort of a similar exchange later in the day on the way back from a trip to the grocery store. Kaio and I walked there, or well, I walked and he rode in a little blue car push toy. I went to get flour for a batch of Amish Friendship Bread and ended up buying three types of flour. I also wanted to get a treat for Kaio so that he would be happy about the trip to the grocery store and also so I could use it entice him out of the car-shaped shopping cart. But treat is there for a holistic mother at Safeway? and a stroll down the produce isle revealed the perfect treat - an organic banana. Sweet, portable, no washing needed, no trash, no chemicals, pesticides, or artificial ingredients. It was perfect! Only shame is that it was not local. But that would be impossible to find at Safeway. Well it all worked, the banana was just enough to get Kaio out of the shopping cart car and back into his push car. The problem came when I tried to put my bags of flour in the storage hood of his car. Oh ,he started crying. He refused to let me put it in there. I said please, I asked nicely, I tried to reason with him, and I tried putting it in anyway. No he screamed and begged me to take it out. uhhh. I was getting so upset. The bag was heavy, and he expected me to carry it and push him! I told him that and he didn't care. I considered just leaving it in there and ordering him to deal with it. But my inner-child-psychologist told me to respect his wishes and he would respect me later, or some crap like that. So I took off with him, heavy bag in hand and other hand fumbling to push Kaio in his little car. I was fuming as we were leaving and -acting like a two year old myself- said something like, "fine, you little brat I'll carry the bag, but you are such a freaking brat." A nice lady was walking by and I felt like a bad mom.
Well it took less than 50 feet for Kaio to look back at me and say, "mom. put de bag in de trunk?"
He was making a peace offering. By now I had already found a way to hang the bag on the hand of the push car. But I had to accept his offer and move the groceries there. It was sweet that things worked out in the end. And then I spent the rest of the walk thinking about what a baby I had been for getting so worked up about it in the first place.

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