Some Days Are Like That

I had a particularly rough afternoon with Noah yesterday. It didn't help that I had my parents, a captive audience, in the car witnessing Noah's increasingly irrational and irritating meltdown and my subsequent outburst. By the end of the ugly ride home, my head was pounding still from my migraine, my dad had scolded Noah (which scared him all the more), I had stopped the car to spank him (Noah, not my dad), I had reached back while driving to spank him again when he openly defied me, Anna was in tears, I had yelled, and it was all my mom could do not to laugh. It was all I could do, too, not to tell her to stop trying to reason with the boy and that she was only making it worse. It was a bad fallout. Bad. I seriously had to will my own tears away. And then I laughed to hear in my mind something Josh said the previous week when I made the mistake of picking a food battle with Anna: "Model parenting, it was not."

To Noah's credit, once he stopped heaving, wailing, disobeying, crying, and being swatted at from the front seat, he did say he didn't want to disobey again and that he was having a bad day (this made me think of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - how fitting). I agreed with him (because "some days are like that") and we agreed together he would try again tomorrow. Later on while Noah napped, I sat at the counter asking myself what I could have done to prevent that situation from coming to a head. I have a number of ideas about that. But I won't go into those. They are better summed up in a very timely post I read today about Patient Motherhood . It was particularly helpful, practical, and inspired. And encouraging. And even a little soothing to me and my ruffled feathers. So I thought maybe it would be the same for any of you moms I know that are also looking headlong into a summer of possibly similar (although hopefully rare) moments as well. It's a good, to-the-point reality check. The quote that stood out the most to me said that the "fruit of my frustration is bound to be rotten." I sure felt like this was true of me (Noah, too) yesterday.

On a separate note (but still about good reads) I finished the last of the Lineage of Grace series today. The final book, Unafraid, told from Mary's perspective, was quite a teaching tool to my heart. I may have cried a few times. Good series; I totally recommend it. Francine Rivers, you just keep going up in my book!