Learning curve

Last night was not one of my finer moments as a parent.

4 days of whining non stop. Multiple time outs. Belligerence. Defiance. Yelling. Throwing.

A lovely cold on top of it all.

It all came to a head at 12:30 am, screaming in his bed. And then he charged me. And kicked me.

Twice.

And I kind of lost my cool.

Awesome.

This morning when he woke up at 6:15 Shaun asked me if I was okay.

I asked him if it was too early to start drinking.

He told me it would probably be frowned upon.

I guess he's probably right.

I hate getting mad at my kid. I hate it. Its the worst.

I always thought I would be the disciplinarian -

but I down right suck at it.

Its not that I need him to be my best friend,

I just expect more from myself than that.

That and I don't want to raise a serial killer.

At breakfast, I told him I was sorry.

That kicking was wrong,

but what I did was wrong too.

That its never okay to hit,

even when we're mad.

That I made a mistake by doing what I did.

He said he was sorry too, and climbed into my lap.

And then he did something he rarely ever does anymore.

He fell asleep.

Exactly the way he use to lay on me when he was a baby.

I guess neither if us slept very well.

My chest was heavy,

hot and sweaty with the heat coming from his head -

but it threw me back, instantly

to those first months,

that first year,

holding and holding

and holding him.

I don't think I put him down the first 4 months he was here.

I thought it would be so easy then.

It would be a walk in the park.

But the truth is, this is the hardest job I've ever had.

He pushes me, in so many ways.

He pushes my buttons and to the edge sometimes,

but he also pushes me to be better at this,

to be a better mom, a better person.

They always seem to leave out of all those parenting books about the times you're going

to fuck up.

And you will. I think its inevitable.

I guess we're all growing through this process.

And as he tries to figure out his world,

the kind of person he's becoming, and will be -

I'm trying to figure out my world as a parent,

the kind of parent I'm becoming,

The kind of parent I will be.

That I want to be.

And its a giant learning curve sometimes.

So I said I'm sorry.

Because I don't want to be afraid to hide my flaws from him.

My faults, my mistakes.

And because most importantly,

sometimes I get it wrong.

And that's okay too.

Its why its a curve.

... We laid there.

I think he needed to know that we were okay.

I think I needed it just as much.