It was a toddler kind of day here - perhaps you’ve had one (or many) of these? ;)

I picked my son up from Kita (preschool) and he was upbeat and said he’d had fun. I was expecting good things once we got home. I made his favorite lunch - pasta and veggie bolognese sauce with some cheese. I let him know that he would have to wear a bib to eat, since the sauce is messy. This, is what followed:

“NOOOOOO, want play”. He then took the bib, threw it on the ground in the living area, and proceeded to whine and throw himself around a bit. I ignored this. He came back to the table, I repeated the bib mandate, and he repeated his part of the interaction. I ignored this again. I finished my lunch and was cleaning up, telling him it was almost nap time. He came over to the table and climbed up in his chair. He let me know he had found a green spot on the table and he wanted to clean it.

I’m sorry what?!?!

I got him a papertowel to clean the spot, which he tried very hard (unsuccessfully) to clean. But, it was a good opportunity for me to actually clean it…

Next, of course, he wanted lunch because he was hungry. I got out the lunch again. As he was eating, a sauce covered noodle fell from his fork and landed on the table (now there was an orange spot on the table…). He simply bent his head down and worked for about 30 seconds to get the noodle in his mouth without using hands or fork. #nailedit

I’ll spare you the rest of the details leading up to nap time, although it was basically more of the same. When you think about these kinds of days, how does it make you feel? Overwhelmed? Frustrated? Angry? Dejected? Like the day is just a bad day?

It’s easy to start feeling that way. We all, as humans, are drawn to responding to the emotions and experiences of others - especially the ones we love. It’s easy to let ourselves get dragged down by these kinds of interactions. There’s a reason people have created phrases like the “terrible two’s”.

Can it be different for you? Check out Part 2 and see what you think.