Not my best day

The exact circumstances and details don't matter, but yesterday I was so tired and so ill-tempered that parenting an equally tired (although not nearly as cranky) toddler was a challenge. Unfortunately, I completely failed to meet this challenge.

In fact, I failed to meet it repeatedly, and with a kind of sadistic relish. I think I yelled at Isaac more times yesterday than I had in the previous two years and nine months of his life. And I mean really yelled, too, sometimes for no real reason.

Which one of these situations do you like best?

1) When, after Isaac climbed on a chair to reach the kitchen counter and hungrily reached out for my sandwich fixings, I said angrily, "Don't touch my ham!"

2) When, after Isaac refused to pick up his toys so that our cleaning people would be able to vacuum the floor, I said bitterly, "Well, if you don't help me pick up the toys I might just have to take them all away, and then you'll have no toys at all! How would you like that?"

3) When, after Isaac stuck his head into my room where I was resting instead of playing quietly by himself in his own room as I had instructed, I said coldly, "Go back into your room and close the door and don't come out until Mama comes to get you!"

Of these three, only situation number one actually made him cry. When I looked down at him, I saw that his lips were quivering and big tears were running silently down his cheeks. Number two struck him as an interesting proposition, and he actually suggested it might be a good idea if I did take away his toys. That's an excellent reason to not use such a ridiculous ultimatum with a two-year-old -- you get backed right into a corner. The terrible thing about number three was that I repeated the sentence over and over, drowning out whatever he was trying to say to me, until he gave up and left the room.

And those were only three of yesterday's many examples of bad parenting.

So I'll write this embarrassing and shameful post as a reminder to myself -- whenever I start feeling smug and overconfident as a parent, I can come back and read about my behavior yesterday, and that will bring me back in touch with reality. Parenting is hard, and I need to be prepared to work at it, and yesterday I just didn't try hard enough. Poor Isaac.