Friday, October 24, 2008

World War 3 and subsequent peace talks

So yesterday morning there was a small war at my house. Over a sweatshirt. A stinking green (olive green) sweatshirt (supercute, from Gymboree, had cable knit sweater stuff around neck). 45 minutes we fought over that shirt. It finally ended in him putting the shirt on in the car while sitting in the carpool lane. Lemme tell ya, he wasn't happy about it. He let me know that by screaming "I hate you" as he got out of the car. Nice.
So all day long, I labor over the fact that I hate battles like that with my child. "Pick your battles" is a phrase I always keep at the forefront of my mind, although that wasn't an option over the sweatshirt because 1. it was really cold outside and 2. every other sweatshirt we had was way too small. Apparently someones arms grew exponentially over the summer.
So, as a mother, we face the guilt of feeling like we aren't a good parent. Much to my dismay, the hard part that I was warned of in the beginning was nothing compared to when the baby grows up and begins to walk and talk. Parenting is hard. Way harder than I could have ever guessed. But worth it. 150% worth it.
So, when I picked Parker up from school I was ready for the fighting to resume. I was braced for the worst. WHat was one of the first things out of his mouth? "Hey mom, this sweatshirt is really warm, I like it" Um, excuse me. I nearly fell over. We went home and had a good night of Mommy/Parker time. It was great. Never once did the tv get turned on. We ate cereal for dinner (don't even start), we read words on the boxes, he used the table centerpiece pumpkins to discuss bigger, smaller, shorter and taller, we read books and cuddled in bed.
One significant change in our bestime routine was made...... we laid out the clothes for the next day. Let's just say that this morning was peaceful and easy. I would say that the peace talks were sucessful.

0 comments: