Monday, March 5, 2012

What We as Children Never Knew about Our Parents

We had a rough evening yesterday...

Lucas had his one year check-up on Thursday, which means he had 6 shots! I figured he'd have side effects, but he was wonderful Thursday night. Even took 14 steps!! Friday at daycare, he just got worse and worse all day. He didn't hardly eat or drink anything and maybe slept 30 minutes total!! Not a good day...he did okay that evening and went to bed fairly early. He woke up at 6:30a on Saturday and did wonderful all day! He had his normal naps, ate fine (not as much as normal, but fine), and went to sleep great Saturday night. Sunday was the same way; everything was normal until dinner...

We usually do something quick and easy Sunday night, so we had a frozen pizza in the oven. We fed him some squash while it was cooking and looking back on it, that should've been it until the pizza was done. But, Nick gave him some goldfish crackers to munch on while he waited. So, by the time the pizza was ready, he wasn't all that hungry. He ate about half of it, then started playing with it. We told him "no", but he still kept doing it, then started to throw the rest of it on the ground. So, he got a firm "no" again and a little slap on the hand. Well, this hurt his feelings, but also made him mad, so he slapped his high chair. We told him "no no" again, he slapped the high chair again and then he started throwing a little fit. He started kind of screaming and making himself cry. It was nuts! First of all, usually when he gets "in trouble", he starts crying because his feelings are hurt and that's it. We comfort him, tell him we love him, remind him what he got in trouble for, and it's over. Not this time!

He continued to throw a fit. We put him down and he started grunting like he was going to the bathroom, which he hadn't done all day. I checked him and he hadn't gone, so I figured he might have been constipated. So, I held him and tried to give him a little juice; he slapped his cup! Oh my goodness! I don't know where he learned to slap?! This continued a little while longer with him grunting, us checking him and he hadn't gone, trying to give him juice, and him slapping his cup. We finally gave him some gas drops while getting him to stop throwing a fit, and he calmed down.

This whole thing lasted about 10-15 minutes and by the end, I was so mad at him! I got more and more mad the more he slapped! This brings me to the title of my post...

After he went to bed and Nick and I were discussing the situation, I started to cry. I was so upset that I had gotten so mad at him. He didn't really know how mad I was because you can't show it to your child, especially when they're one, but I just hated that I was mad at him in my head. This is the part we as children never saw with our parents...how upset they were when they had to get onto us. It just killed me. It's really true that it hurts the parents way more than it hurts the child. Whether that be spanking or just disciplining. It was awful:(

It's gonna be a long, hard road discipling our children and I'm sure there will be plenty more times that one or all of us are going to be very frustrated, but I hope they understand how much I love them and how much it hurts me. I never saw that until I became a parent myself.

3 comments:

Leslie said...

The whole anger when disciplining your child has been my biggest struggle lately. I have been absolutely blown away by how quickly my temper can flare up when R tests me, and it has been a humbling reminder of how desperate I am for the Holy Spirit's transformation in my own heart! Honestly, we are not even spanking R at this point solely because I am not at a place where I can do it without anger. Hard to admit that, but it's true! All that to say, I understand!!!

Mrs. Maxson said...

Thanks so much:) It's so hard! I hate to even get onto him; he's just so little, but if we don't start right now, it will soon get out of hand. Yes, it is such a humbling reminder. I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Unknown said...

I am the mother of an almost 2 year old little boy so your post today hit home for me in a big way. I wish i could say it's going to get better the older he gets but unfortunately the "terrible twos' start early sometimes.
I definately have my own moments of crying spells after disciplining my son. I am sure it will never get easier....the funny thing is when I was pregnant with him i had this dream that he was like 4 or 5 and I was always spanking him and telling him that mommy loves him and doesnt want to spank him but he was being bad...and it kept happening over and over in the dream....boys will be boys I guess:) Feel free to vent whenever you need! Trust me...moms understand!