"Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better."

Newsflash: raising a toddler is often challenging on the best of days. On the worst of days it's enough to give even the most cheerful parent post traumatic stress disorder. I am not the most cheerful parent, and today was not the best of days.

It started early. Something like 3:00 am when my 2.5 year-old, G, woke screaming from a nightmare. She calmed quickly but tossed and turned the rest of the night. At 6 I heard her leave the room. Then the screaming began. She wanted water, but not in that cup. She didn't want to take off her "nigh-nigh" diaper. She wanted breakfast but not cereal or yogurt or toast, no no; she wanted popcorn. By the time my husband left for work she'd had 1,ooo little meltdowns, each over something I thought was silly.

I tried to save the day: we watched her favorite movie, we painted with two kinds of paints, we colored, we listened to Yo Gabba Gabba music and had a dance party, we played with Little People, we read books. We had a hot bath (well she had a bath, I watched). By noon I was exhausted and almost as cranky as G. My baby daughter, maybe picking up on the mood in the room or maybe just sick of being half neglected, started to fuss and whine too. I thought I was going to lose it.

I'm often at a loss on what to do in situations such as these. Something in me, the part that reads way too many blogs written by perfect parents who would never snap at their equally perfect children, feels like there is something I should be doing to diffuse the situation. Most of me just wants to yell, "QUIT IT ALREADY KID!" Well, if I knew how to diffuse things I guess I wouldn't be dealing with a whiny kid all day, and if yelling worked I guess I wouldn't have a two-year-old who randomly shouts"THAT'S ENOUGH!!!" at me when she gets frustrated*. So I gave myself a time-out. I picked up G and laid her in bed with a book. I picked up the baby and carted her around in the baby carrier. I made myself a cup of coffee. I told both girls that I loved them. Both of them fell asleep within minutes.

I still don't know if this was the right thing to do. I still feel guilty because I let myself get to the point where I was snippy and wanted to yell. I still feel like I should be able to do something, anything, salvage our day. But in the end maybe I did do the best I could. And maybe all I need to remember is that, " Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better." That quote, by the way, is from Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henke. Yeah, I get my parenting advice from books written for kindergartners. What's your point?


*That makes it seem like I yell all the time or something. I don't, but I'm not going to pretend I've never done it, either. It's something that I'm working on and I'm happy to say several months ago we made our house a place where we don't yell when we get angry or frustrated.