Yogurt Drool & Crazy Big Huge Slides

So I'm sitting at dinner tonight and I've got one little guy being ridiculously well behaved (I'll pretend that this wasn't because he was trying to make up for the 15 year old attitude crammed in a 4 year old body that he was tossing around today) and I've got another little guy with the top of his hand pressed against his yogurt filled mouth humming and cracking up at the fact that as he hummed, a yogurty saliva mixture was half spraying across the table and half hanging off of his chin. There he sat, resembling a dog with severe drooling problems, while my poor 4 year old is desperately trying not to laugh because he is probably worried that I will make bedtime even earlier than the already early time I promised tonight...and I am just sitting there with a frozen dinner wondering what in the world has happened here. 

I find myself having a lot of those "what in the world is happening" or "how the hell did this awesome day we were having 35 seconds ago turn into this"  or "whose kids are standing up backwards in the shopping cart at Target...oh crap, those are mine" moments lately.

There was that one time, not too long ago, when Ben threw a little bit too much of that attitude towards his dad and was informed that the trip to the park with the "cwazy big huge slides and swings for Blakey" was going to have to wait for another day. 


Enter the horrific sound of a 4 year old meltdown. 
And then the desperate attempts to get that trip to the park back. 

I really did  have to applaud his post relentless eye rolling, throwing himself on the ground and yelling at us to look at his water coming out of his eyes efforts, though. Honestly...it was almost award worthy. The kid was going to get his trip to the park back. 

He started by telling his dad that he would turn his attitude off...and followed that up with a tear filled smile as he reached around to some imaginary switch on his own skinny back and pretended to turn it off. Then there was the back rub that he gave Joe while he told him that he was making his feelings not hurt anymore. He ran to the shoe basket and put his own shoes on, gave his little brother his shoes and then put my flip flops on me and brought Joe his gym shoes and told us we were all set...
I mean, what do you even do with that?

I'll tell you what you do. You remove yourself from that situation and you peel your other child off of the floor, since he has clearly put the pieces together...has realized that we are not going to be leaving anytime soon...and has planted himself in front of the door in protest. 

The kid was pissed. And I felt bad. 

So I tried to console him. I tried to hold him, I tried to bring him a basketball, I tried "singing" him silly songs. But nothing was working, so I just stood within sight, avoided eye contact and opened a bottle of wine.

That's when the little booger figured out that the front door had apparently not closed completely when Joe got home a few minutes before. 

And there went my one year old...right out the front door. 

He made it through 2 doors, had turned his tiny little self around and was ready to head down the stairs before he realized I was right behind him...and his happy look of freedom turned into limb thrashing defeat. 

Now...
Call me a pushover. Tell me that I'm teaching the wrong kind of lessons. Tell me that I should ignore tantrums instead of acknowledging them. Remind me that if you give in to your children, they will assume they can always get what they want out of the situation...

These are all things that I know. They are things I tell myself. They are things I try to stick to when the moment calls for it...

But this moment didn't call for it. 
This moment called for this. 

Cwazy big huge slides and swings for Blakey. 

No real life lessons were learned that day. We didn't overcome tantrums. The eye rolling almost looks painful. Yogurt drool bubbles are still being created at dinner (and, according to my mom...also at lunch). But we did have fun. And we did go down the cwazy big huge slides. And we did swing. 

And just as fast as our good minute turned bad...our bad minute turned good. 

And then it was time to leave. 

And just as fast as our bad minute turned good...

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