Tough Day

Yesterday was a tough day. It started out okay--or as okay as an early morning dentist appointment can be. I got my son to my mom's house with plenty of time to spare (a lot of times I run it pretty close to almost being late) and made it to my appointment early. I had been worried about my appointment possibly running late because we also had Little Gym that morning, but I got out (with no problems with my teeth) in plenty of time and was even able to chat with my mom a little while Luke got to play with his cousin who was also there.

On to Little Gym, where things started out okay. The rock climbing wall was set up this time (I say "wall" but since this is for toddlers, it is not very tall) and Luke was all over it. Quite literally. I had to hold him back so that the other kids could take their turns on it. He was so into it that he didn't want to do any of the class activities. But then he saw that the water fountain, which is usually covered, was uncovered. And he wanted to play with it. After sticking his face in the water and getting water all over the floor, I pulled him away. He lost it. Full on tantrum. I took him to the side to help him calm down. He did only to go back to the fountain. More screaming. I took him out of the room to calm down. Then tried it one more time. No go. So we left early (the class ended just as we had finished putting on our shoes and gathering our stuff so it wasn't too early).

I had planned to go to Joann's to get buttons for my new cowl and really wanted to still do that. Fortunately I had some bunnies in my purse and eating those calmed Luke down enough for me to be able to get the buttons I needed. Then I decided to go ahead with the next errand since Luke had seemed to calm down: Toys 'R Us. (Thomas engines are on sale for 40% off plus they have some great clearance deals right now.) Picked up some toys to stash as treats for potty training and also picked up a toy for Luke's birthday.

It seemed like things were looking up. But then Luke fell asleep in the car on the way home and I was worried. He hadn't eaten lunch yet. Did I wake him up and feed him lunch and risk that he wouldn't go down for a nap (sometimes those car naps spoil his real nap) or did I skip lunch and put him into bed and hope he didn't wake up too early because he was hungry? I opted for the second option since he seemed super sleepy when I got him out of the car. Wrong choice. Five minutes after putting him into bed, he was awake. He did stay in his bed, talking to himself, so I started to work (I had an editing job that would take several hours to complete). That didn't last much longer before he was out of bed and nothing I could do would get him to go back to sleep. I was feeling a bit frazzled myself, so I gave up trying to get him to sleep on his own and laid down with him. He still didn't want to sleep, but after quite a while, he finally drifted off. Success!? Nope. Anytime I tried to move he would wake up. So I was trapped in his room. I drifted off myself which was another mistake because when I woke up I felt even worse than I did before (those power naps never seem to work out for me).

At least shortly after that, my husband came home so I could sit down and do a little work. And Luke did go to bed without too much trouble. I finished my editing work with just under an hour before bedtime so I did do some spinning.

But then I slept horribly last night and was wide awake around 4 am. Luke woke up a little after 5. I'm hoping today is better but we'll see.

You know, typing this out, yesterday doesn't seem quite so bad. Good things happened: positive dentist experience, small chat with my mom, finding the buttons I needed, getting a good deal on some toys, finishing an editing job, getting some spinning time in. The bad things were Luke throwing several tantrums in public and not taking a nap. And that's not untypical of toddler behavior. I think I just haven't been sleeping well or feeling great so those annoyances get extra annoying and seem to overshadow everything else. I've almost deleted this post since it seems like I'm complaining about a bad day that really wasn't all that bad after all. But I think I'll post it anyway because writing it out helped me realize that it wasn't that terrible and maybe I'll need this reminder again. Okay, so there's probably no maybe about it. But maybe I'll have a better attitude about it next time.