Not the Night We Planned

You know those nights where kids have reached their limits, which in turn pushes you past your own limits? We had/are having one of those right now.  Call it starting school again, call it days away from having a new sister, call it a mom who is tired of being pregnant, call it all of the above, but whatever it is, Owen is having a rough night!!

It all began on the way home from the office.  He suddenly looked at his shoes and informed me in a not so nice way that he needed new shoes and then starting crying that he needed them now.  I offered to take him to the mall as soon as his dad got home, mind you it was ten minutes after we were set to get home.  That was unacceptable and it started the downward spiral of our night. 

Going to the mall was a necessity but all of a sudden it was not for new shoes, but for Ursula at the Disney Store.  He started yelling at me telling me he wanted and NEEDED Ursula and I needed to get her today and he wasn’t waiting for his dad, and then Ivy started to yell Mama Mama to which every time I answered her she wouldn’t say anything.  All the while I am talking to Angie about a client about to receive $180,000 of proceeds from a property settlement in which he wants to keep and not pay to his creditors and is convinced I have misrepresented him by not allowing him to keep it. Whatever client.  Oh, and my feet are so swollen from sitting at my desk and the heat that I am convinced they may explode. It was a lot going on during a short time and this car ride home sort of set the tone for things to get worse. 

We arrive home with a firm statement that I am not going taking him to the mall. 

I cut him an apple and told him to watch a show and rest for a minute while I figured out what to make him for dinner.  He turned into himself again (briefly) and he showed me how he swings so high, munched on his apple, watched a show and laughed away. 

Then he sees his spaghetti and starts to cry that he doesn’t want noodles.  He makes himself a sandwich instead.  Then he wants to watch another show and cries because he can’t.  Then as I am resting my weary feet I tell Owen to ask Greg in his nicest voice to make us a peanut butter chocolate banana snack.  Owen says, “Dad, do it”.  I ask him to try another way, “Dad, do it please.”  Greg says he will as soon as he is done sweeping.  Then the worst of it begins and I am getting to the really good part.

Owen starts yelling that he needs to make it, he starts to tell me that he wants it now.  I had already said that the way he was asking was not going to get us a snack and maybe tomorrow would be a better day for it.  He starts to yell that he is having his snack.  I say we are done and getting ready for bed.  He looks at my poor puffy feet and hits them.  That was sad both for my feet and my feelings.  Then he stomped away.  I asked him please to go to his room to get ready for bed, he spit at me.  I then told him to please go to his room to get ready for bed and I needed him to stay there because he was being so mean.  He said no.  Greg picked him up and took him away.  He threw all his covers off his bed, threw some books at his door, I said goodnight and gave him some pajamas and told him this was not ok in our family.  He threw the pajamas at me.  I calmly explained that we can be mad, but getting what you want this way can not happen. 

And here is where it gets really good.  We kiss his head, give him a big hug and head downstairs.  In the distance we hear him crying and yelling for me and crying some more.   Suddenly there is a knock on the door.  Greg is greeted by a STRANGER asking if everything was ok.  He said he could hear Owen crying down the street (from the open windows in Owen’s room).  Greg explained that he was a tired 6 year-old in his room.  At first I was annoyed, but then I wasn’t annoyed at all!  How many people now days do something like that.  Not a lot of people hear a small child crying and come to the child’s aide.  So, in the end I liked this guy (I think), although, I hope he believes us and Child Protective Services isn’t on their way. 

I feel sad about the whole thing.  We really don’t put him in his room much, unless he is evil and hurting people, but, I can’t stop rehearsing the events in my head as to what I could have done differently, how could I have prevented things from getting so out of hand, so much so that a neighbor came by to check on him.  

At least now he is calm, he is calling to me from his room, asking me to please come see him.  So I am going.  I am still not going to buy Ursula just because he wants it, and I am not giving him a peanut butter chocolate banana tonight.   But, if I know myself, I am  going to go upstairs and not only see him, but bring him out of his room and snuggle together in my bed while we watch “the clothes show” (Project Runway) and love him a little before he falls asleep. 

Because right or wrong in the teaching department, that is what I do and I don’t question doing that.