Rough Day

Much of today was difficult.

I woke up at 4:45, and went to the track at 5:50ish.  I walked, and listened to the radio, me time.  I came home a little before 7.  Bertram was awake, so he and I ate breakfast, and he watched one cartoon.

Then I told him we were going on an adventure.  The county parks department puts on this sort of photo scavenger hunt for the summer.  I thought he and I could give it a try, especially since I want him to spend more time outside.  It was going to be pretty warm, so we headed out early, and went to Quicksilver Park.  He seemed amenable, until we set foot on the trail. Then he whined almost the whole way.  He wanted to go home.  He didn't like it.  He was too tired.  We did take some pictures.  But I practically had to drag him.  And, I actually ended up carrying him on my shoulders.  It wasn't very long, maybe .8 miles, nor was it very hilly, but he had a terrible time. So, I didn't have a great time.

On the way home he whined more.  When we got back, I sent him down the street to grandma and grandpa's house.  I cleaned the kitchen, and folded some laundry.  Then showered, and went to get him.  Somewhere around that point he said "oh damn it" for the third time that day and lost all his screen time for the rest of the day.  Then he turned on all the lights, and refused to turn them off, so I sent him to his bed.

We had the sibling class in the afternoon, across town.  So we went in that direction earlier in the afternoon to avoid fighting traffic to get there.  We went to the mall, he wanted to ride in the stroller, which was fine with me.  He didn't do too bad at the mall, I just had used up all my patience that morning.

He had been talking excitedly about the big brother class for almost a week.  When I told him it was time to go there, he started whining again.  He was tired, he wanted to go home, etc.

We drove to the Santa Clara Kaiser, and found parking without too much trouble.  He whined most of the way to the class room about not wanting to be there.

When were we in the class, he was the nightmare kid.  Wouldn't be quiet, wouldn't answer when he was spoken to, didn't follow directions well, didn't participate.  I was very close to walking out the door and talking him home.  But we stuck it out.  (After the class he didn't want to go home, but "somewhere else").

The drive home was awful.  I have no clue how people commute.  The hospital is 9 miles from our house.  It took us an hour to get home.  An hour.  I gave him a bag of Goldfish to snack on.  He dumped most of them into him lap.  We stopped at Maccas to get lemonade (hot day, I'd drank all my water, I needed something cold, and I was cranky).  I got him a small, he drank it as we drove.  Until we were about two minutes from the house, when he decided it would be better to (purposefully) trip the drink upside-down, all over the car's seat.  At that point I lost it.  I kept asking him why he did that.  And then I was crying.  We pulled in, and he went directly to time out.  Aaron cleaned out the car as best he could.  Then while he was in time out, he said oh damn it again, so I sent him to his room again.

I've been dismissing his behaviour, because he's 3, he's tired, he doesn't feel well, whatever.  But Aaron pointed out: how often is he the worst kid in the class? The answer is most of the time.  So I'm at a bit of a loss.  I felt like we'd been disciplining him adequately, but he's just been really defiant.  We'll tell him not to do something, he'll look right at us and do it.  There is an immediate consequence, but it doesn't seem to matter.  There is another class called Parenting the Spirited Child (or something like that), so we'll sign up for that, and hope to get some direction.