Today was one of those days that makes you realize why you are starting to notice gray hairs on your head. It started out innocently enough. We all slept in til about 8am this morning which is quite a feat for our family. We got up and the boys played in the living room while Thomas made coffee for us. I got on my computer like I always do to check on emails and briefly look through news and all the ads I get sent. Julian, as usual, was not having it. He has started making it a habit of coming up and shutting my computer when he wants my attention. Sweet little thing. He did the same thing this morning, but he quickly went on to play with something and managed to leave me alone for a little bit. Thomas brought me my wonderful coffee with the foam on the top. It was divine! I started to take a second sip when Julian came up and knocked his toy on my keyboard and shook my hand with the coffee in it. The coffee then spilled on my keyboard. It was only a little bit, but it still managed to fry my keyboard to the point where it can no longer be used. Fortunately, the part is already ordered and I’m using an external keyboard now to type this ever important blog post.
Our day went on and I decided that, in lieu of parks or playdates or fun things for the kids, I would attempt to venture out with the kids and do a little shopping. We have a mini-trip coming up this weekend and I needed to get a couple of odds and ends. It went really well. I went to Marshall’s and found a couple of things (I always do). Then I went to Ulta and got some hair products and we went home to eat lunch because we didn’t have any spare diapers with us and Julian desperately needed a new one.
We had a nice and peaceful lunch where the kids actually ate what I made them. All was well.
As the day progressed, we went outside so the boys could play. But before I knew it, both boys ended up inside the minivan — their favorite place to play. I quickly got them both out and my oldest proceeded to scream and hit and kick me. I could tell he was really tired and I had planned on loading them up in the car so he could nap a bit, but I opted instead for a short time out on a chair in the garage so he could calm down and apologize.
Now, let’s back up about, oh, three days ago. We were out having breakfast and stopped by Sears Outlet to look at their lawn equipment when we noticed that they had the perfect sized bike for Tate and it was on sale. We had talked about getting him a bike for his upcoming birthday, but were not seriously looking. However, the opportunity presented itself and we came up with the perfect heist to get the bike back home and up in the attic before he could discover it.
Well, that almost went off without a hitch. As my son was sitting in time out in the garage, he looked up and noticed the beautiful box in the attic that had a picture of a shiny red bike on the front of it. His hysterical cries quickly went to hysterical laughter as he started to realize that it was a new bike for him. “OH. MY. GODDDDDDD!!!!!” I thought. This was supposed to be the perfect present for his 4th birthday and now it was ruined. My thoughts quickly raced to ways I could cause harm to my husband. I’m kidding. But seriously!? How could we have been so careful about getting this thing home and then, after all that, not followed through on a tiny detail like the fact that it was the front box in the attic and the attic door was open!??? My son’s hysterical laughter/crying quickly turned back to hysterical crying when I told him we couldn’t get it down. It was for his birthday. He needed to wait. That was not going to fly. I quickly called my husband to rip him a…and try to come up with a plan. His plan was to come home early and put the bike together for our son. We had no backup plan. We were screwed. We were just going to have to give it to him early and make him promise that he wouldn’t expect anything on his birthday. ha! Yeah. Right.
After that, I drove my kids on a couple errands in order to get them to fall asleep. Then we went to the grocery store to pick up a few odds and ends. I took my time because I wanted my husband to have plenty of uninterrupted time to put that bike together. When we returned home, his car was in the driveway and when he came out to greet us, we noticed that the bike box in the attic was gone. I asked my husband under my breath what he had done with the bike. He said he hid it when he saw us pull up. Funny thing is, he hadn’t even begun putting it together again. My son was in a state of disbelief that the bike had gone missing. Where could it be? We brainstormed. We thought about it. And that was it. He never asked about it again for the rest of the evening.
We took him to soccer practice. We came home and ate dinner. Not much more than a, “Where did that bike go?” come out of his mouth. By bedtime, he had put it out of his mind completely.
I said all that to say that I find some comic relief in all of this. My husband and I both have a tendency to take the stress of the moment so literally. We frequently get into heated conversations over situations like these. We let the situation affect us and make us second guess our parenting. We get frustrated. We get insecure. We lash out. But, in the end, the kids don’t even remember it. They just wanted to make a big deal out of nothing. And now that they have, they are over it. If only I could always remember this when I’m feeling near the end of my rope.
This will pass. And it will pass so quickly that you won’t even know what just happened.
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