keep calm and carry on....

have you ever set yourself up for disaster?

i did! i really believe that good self-reflection is required in order to be a good person, partner, and parent! so.... this was my bad!

well earlier this week jack had a SUPER fun day!

he went to school... a stay day so it was until 2pm.

at pick up his friend asked

*with giant puppy dog eyes*

if jack could come back to his house to play.

it was a HOT day.

the teachers had already informed me they were all in "rare form"

i looked at two adorable sweaty boys,

one mom

(who had apparently lost her mind thinking that 3 boys that were already tired coming to her house was a good idea),

and a few teachers looking at me like "how could you say no?"

so i said "are you sure?" about 20 times to the mom.

questioned her sanity jokingly of course.

and sent my little man off for a play date with 2 of his pals.

i gave him the riot act about being on his bestest behavior!

crossing my fingers.

second guessing myself the entire time he was gone.

there were two scenarios outcomes:

1. upon picking him up hearing that he was a royal you know what

OR

2. upon picking him up getting a raving report how wonderful he was... to quickly learn that he saved his exhausted rotten behavior for yours truly once we got his tired self home.

SO I PREPARED MYSELF!

can you guess what the outcome was?

i picked him up a couple of hours later and found this...

he had a BLAST! the beginning of good old fashioned summer fun!

he said, "mommy can we go to the store now and buy one?!"

after some coaxing & minor bribing, i got him to leave.

we got home... and as expected... meltdown central!

the good news is he held it together at the playdate and saved is monsterousness (this is my own word) for me!

and... the better news is, since i had prepared myself, i remained calm.

(i got this picture off google image... not mine)

despite his ridiculous efforts to antagonize me.

(these photos are not great... it was a moment, and i did not have time to change settings)

running away because i asked him to come to dinner! the horror!

and dinner was good... a regular in our house.

broccoli, chicken & pasta with roasted red pepper sauce. yum!

soooo...

i ignored his statments like:

"your a mean bossy mommy"

"im gonna squash your jewelry"

and one of my personal favorites... "im not gonna play with you in the morning mommy"!

i chuckled to myself with my relatively "off sense of humor" and thought ...

"do you promise i don't have to play with you when you wake up before 6 am?!?"

but i kept my antagonistic comments to myself like a grown up!

i simply & calmly told him he hurt my feelings.

i said things like... "i know sammy (his lil bro) i wish jack would be nice too"

or

"i miss jackabie at the dinner table its not the same without him"

i even tried to feed the drama queen dinner myself!

i did remind him a few times that behaving this way after a playdate was not going to get him future play dates. i certainly wasn't going to just let him behave this way and ignore it entirely!

but seriously... he couldn't hear me.

he was just too tired! he wasn't even making sense! and i am the mommy that let him go play when i knew he probably needed a little down time.

and at one point even said, "no smiling jack... your busy being grumpy"

i got this beautiful smile for half a second until he realized my "social working" worked and then screamed about the sauce on his pasta that he was refusing to eat.

i was so cheesy i was bothering myself.

BUT IT WORKED!

i didn't exhaust myself with arguing, reasoning, or anything else.

i refused to engage!

i KNEW he was tired.

i created the scenario by letting him go.

i don't regret it... its a learning lesson for both of us!

in the middle of all this daddy called, he filled him in on how horrible he thought i was!

eventually he ate.

and then off to bed!

he was fast asleep in moments.

he even told me he loved me still.

and it was a fun day! despite his antics at the end!

here is to the warm weather!

xo