Reflections on the Day

Ah, the ups and downs of parenting. I think Isaiah had about three or four time outs today related to potty training and eating. Maybe I'm trying to force potty training too much. I think tomorrow I'm going to back off some and see how that goes. And with eating, he can feed himself everything from cereal to yogurt, pizza, hamburgers, eggs, etc. But he'll only feed himself when he wants to. I've read that it's good to give two-year-olds choices so they have a sense of control over small things. So I let him choose between two flavors of yogurt, then he refused to eat the one he chose. That defiance is really hard to deal with. Yes, I can sit there and feed him, and he'll usually eat it. But I feel like he's big enough to feed himself so he should. My mom would probably tell me that there will come a day when I'll miss feeding him, and of course she'd be right. But it's still hard to deal with at the time.

Somewhere during all that craziness Samuel had his first bottle and took it like it was no big deal, which was fabulous. I'm going to be away from home for longer stretches of time starting Tuesday because I'm starting my piano lessons up again. So it was time for Samuel to take a bottle. Him taking it so easily was a bright spot in the day.

After the 50th tantrum of the day (Isaiah's, not mine ;) ), just when I was thinking this is about the worst day I've had in a long time, I started singing the clean up song that Isaiah's teacher sings at preschool. To my utter shock and amazement Isaiah started buzzing around like a busy little bee cleaning up his toys. This is the first time he's ever cleaned up all his toys by himself. Usually it takes me a half hour to clean up all his toys after he goes to bed. So that was wonderful.

I wonder if there's any other job that has such low lows and high highs all in the same day.