On my mind today

H was a holy terror yesterday. I blame it on the end of summer and his desperate need to start school ASAP (which happens tomorrow). 

He started the day whining for his new toy rotation box to be taken out. I let him know that the new toys would be out after quiet time. That answer did not satisfy him so he went into our bedroom and asked JJ to get the toys out! That is the first time that he has done that and it blew. my. mind.  Next he wanted to take a walk. I let him know that we would go out after A woke up from her morning nap. So, he proceeded to close all the doors in the house, very loudly, and then yell down the hall about what he was doing in the bathroom. Amazingly enough, this didn't wake A up so he decided to cry and call out for Daddy until she finally did wake up. Then, he proceeded to spend the whole morning keeping all toys away from A. He would take toys out of her hand and at one point he took her hands out from under her to keep her from getting to a toy he wanted to play with.

Right before lunch he asked me to take the top off his water bottle so he could drink it like a big boy. I took it off and turn around 2 seconds later and he has spilled water all over the table (books, my phone, the laptop, etc) in his attempt to immediately put the top back on.  At this point, I flipped my lid. 

My patience was shot from dealing with his antics all morning that I could not handle it. I yelled at him and made him get a towel to clean it up and took his cup away. I didn't comfort him as he cried. I just hardened my heart and went about getting lunch together. In an effort to calm down, I opened Bloglovin to catch up on my blogs and saw this:

This was a slap in the face/heart. It completely spoke to me at the exact moment that I needed it. I don't know which blog posted this (for some reason I couldn't find it again) but this was what I needed. 

While H had spent the morning wearing down my patience, I had spent the morning breaking my son when I didn't respond with understanding or compassion. 

H is only 2 years old. Every thing and every day is an adventure. Every thing is a game. Very rarely is he intentionally bad or mean. This morning, he was annoying most of the time but only mean once. And yet, I treated him like he was purposefully mean and being bad. He doesn't always understand why I am mad so when I react the ways that I was, it was slowly breaking and hurting my gentle-hearted little boy. 

Just realizing that (and typing it now) makes me cry. I love his adventuresome spirit and loving heart but I was not celebrating it when I was yelling at him. I was potentially hardening his heart and I don't want to do that. 

So, I have printed out the above image and put it on my bathroom mirror. I have decided to start my day reading it. It is good for me to remember that "Sorry" doesn't always fix everything. 

So, that is where my head is at today. Is this a reminder that you need? Did this help you in anyway?

I hope that you have a great Tuesday!

KK