Cuteness...continued

With all that venting out of the way, I'll try to get back to the happy place I was in a couple nights ago. When I am in those good moments, I wonder to myself what was really so bad about the tougher moments. Why did I get so mad at Jacob? Sure, it was annoying, but really, couldn't I be a grown-up about it? Couldn't I have allowed him that 5% imperfection? Because the other 95% of the time he is a great boy. So shouldn't I be able to take those moments for what they are - just a 3 year-old being a 3 year-old? But then, in moments, or entire days like the one I've been having today, I am reminded how it really is in the moment of something like that; how utterly helpless you can feel.

We had a showdown in the kitchen on the afternoon of Halloween. I wanted Jacob to eat a good lunch before we went off on the Halloween excursion because I knew for the rest of the day all he was going to eat was crap. Jacob likes me to make him a sandwich to 'take to work', just like Dadddy gets. But Jacob never eats more than a couple bites of the sandwich, and the rest is devoured by Mango in the place that Jacob has decided is 'work' that day and then ultimately leaves behind, forgotten. So on this day he was going to eat it. The whole thing. And there we were in the kitchen, fighting it out. I told him if he didn't eat it then I would never make him another sandwich to take 'to work' like that. I know, I sound like such a baby, but I had been pushed to that point. And it was out. I am very careful about the ultimatums I give because I know more than not, my bluff is going to be called. And if it is indeed a bluff, I am screwed. So I choose my words carefully. I didn't want to take this sweet playtime activity away from him, but in that moment it was that bad. So Jacob replied that was fine, he could go without the sandwiches, which you know is not true. You know that he'd be at me the next day, begging for a lunch to take on his 'job with Bob'.

Fast forward to me doing something really wrong. Not Social Services Comes To Take Your Kids wrong, but wrong in that I crossed a line I never wanted to cross. And I immediately felt like a piece of crap. Just like that the whole buildup was swept away and I gathered a sobbing Jacob into my arms, and as we settled to the floor I started crying too. I held him for a while and apologized and explained that I shouldn't have gotten so mad/he didn't do anything wrong/I just lost my temper/adults get like that sometimes too. And I told him I would try hard to be better, and all those honest things that were going through my head. This, too, is part of my parenting philosophy. I strive to be honest with him in all moments, or as honest as I think is appropriate. I think it is healthy for kids to see a full-spectrum of emotions from their parents, but I think it needs to be in an age appropriate way, and it always needs to be explained. And the apologizing - that is one thing I am good at - admitting when I am wrong and saying my needed sorries, which I think is important for kids to get from adults; equal respect. That is one of my biggies. I expect Jacob to respect me, but only as much as I respect him.

After the kitchen incident last week Jacob did finish his sandwich, and I have happily made him one everyday since. The other night I even made one for 'Bob'. And then 'Bob' got to have some candy corn dessert after he finished his sandwich. It was probably one of the first times Jacob has had candy corn so he took his time examining it and then decided it looked like a traffic cone. I thought that was particularly astute of him because when I was planning his birthday party, I had thought for a while I would put candy corn on his 'femes cake' to serve as traffic cones.

Something else that is cute - which we are still in the 'cute' phase of, but I recognize that it will likely soon move into the 'issue' phase of - is...how should I say... the fibbing. I'll call it that now, and later, when I'm complaining about it, I'll just start referring to it as lying. So now that Jacob is catching on about rules and whatnot, he's also learning that they can be stretched, while concurrently realizing that truth is a subjective thing. We've caught him using the old "But Mommy/Daddy said I could..." that I didn't have the advantage of using when I was growing up. So it must be Zach's bad karma coming back at us? A couple days ago Jacob was walking around the downstairs after having just awoke from a nap, so he didn't know I hadn't left for work yet when Zach instructed him to take off his shoes. "But Mommy said I could wear my shoes in the house," he whined. "Hey!" I yelled from upstairs, "Which Mommy was that?" And Jacob knew he had been caught red-handed.

So then later that night, after I was back home from work, and it was way too late for Jacob to be up (thanks to his late nap) - this is the same night of the staircase act and the late-night snuggling - we were in bed and Jacob kept doing something annoying, I don't remember what...but he would apologize after doing it each time, and I would explain that it didn't make it ok to do just because you plan to apologize afterwards. It has to be an accident for one to make valid use of the word. Now I figure the word 'accident' is going to come back to bite me in the ass.

And at another point during that bed scene I kept telling Jacob to be quiet, so he'd close his eyes and start in with the "Ah-shoo, ah-shoo" as loudly as he could manage. "Jacob! Just because you are pretending to be asleep doesn't mean you are being quiet!" I snapped. So a minute later he starts whispering to himself..."Jacob! I said Qui-et!" I snapped again. "But Mommy, when I was whispering, I was being quiet," he argued. Now we have to work on the difference between quiet and silent, but in the meantime, how can I be mad at that?