Up and Down

My children were settling down into their beds after reading an interactive braille version of Going on a Bear Hunt when my daughter said, “let’s do our favorite parts”.  I had to think for a minute to figure out what she was talking about before I realized she wanted to do the Up and Down parts of our day.

We don’t always do this—we should, but we’re forgetful.   It’s when we talk about the best and worst parts of our day, or “Up and Down”.    My daughter started and had gotten into her third “Up” part before I said I wanted to share my Up part of the day—and this is the point I want to interrupt the story and go back in time about an hour.

My children aren’t that difficult, but they’re not completely compliant either.   They can dither, delay and be the cause of much adult infuriation when it comes to listening and moving their little bodies to do the thing you just told them (three times) they had to do.    Tonight it was bath-related and I lost my temper with both of them, explaining when I said a thing, I meant a thing.  

Some of this is good because if children realize they can ignore you three times because you never mean what you say until the fourth time, then why bother hurrying up when there’s time before they get in trouble?

I’ll spare you the details, but I got short and straight with both of them more than once during the end of night routine.  My daughter was particularly upset because I wouldn’t play the, “where’s the egg” game with her under the towel as she had run off and not listened when she got out of the tub.    Crying notwithstanding, I wasn’t swayed.   Hair was dried, teeth were brushed and we all three made it upstairs within the story telling window before bed.  

That’s when the Bear Hunt story was read and we moved into the Up and Down discussion.   And here’s the interesting thing—neither of them thought the worst part of the day was me being upset at them.  It was when Madison hit my daughter by accident or when the friends had to go home.   It wasn’t, “when you were being mean to us, mom, and you’re a terrible mom”.   It wasn’t that, even though that was the most recent negative experience they’d had in their days.

I’m not saying I’m happy about getting mad at the children, because I never am.   But I am somewhat relieved it’s not the black mark on their whole day in their minds.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told his Up and Down parts and shortly after that I left to go work in the basement.   My daughter found me downstairs a few minutes later, saying she needed Dolly and could I help.   I told her she knew how to turn on the lights in the closet and she could find Dolly herself and if she needed help, she could ask her brother.   She cried but went back upstairs.  About ten minutes later I went to go check on her to see if she’d found Dolly.   She had, and had asked her brother.   I told him thank you for helping her and he said in a groggy voice, “I was asleep and she woke me up.   That was my second down part of the night…”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Just before I left my children’s bedroom tonight my daughter decided to tell me about her plans for becoming a mother.   She told me: “Mom do you know when I grow up I’m gonna be a mom?   I’m gonna name my little sweeties.  I'm going to have eight. One is going to be Alyssa and one is going to be Goldie. How many more until eight?”

Toenail Update:  I damaged my left big toenail in April during the Rock and Roll marathon.   It’s been slowly growing out ever since (emphasis on ’slowly’).   I’ve had to trim some of it off in the past week because it was starting to, well, dangle.   The part under the nail is not happy.   It has been demonstrating this by bleeding regularly.   I don’t normally have injuries like this and while it’s not particularly painful, I hope the skin toughens up before the two upcoming marathons.