A reward at the end of the day

5 November 2010

Yesterday we had the most terrible day. Josh fought every sleep and I had to resort to bouncing on the Pilates ball again just to calm him down enough to get him to sleep. As usual all I could think was 'oh no I'm forming a bad pattern and now I'm going to have to spend my life bouncing him to sleep (insert very funny mental picture of me bouncing an 18 year Josh on my lap to get him to go to sleep). He also would not be put down so I struggled to get any work done. By the end of the day I had had enough so much so that I actually went to my mother's to use her phone to call and sort out our municipal billing issues just so that I could have an excuse to get out of the house. You know things are desperate when you choose holding the line for 20min and then fighting with a call centre agent about your huge water bill over trying to entertain you child.

By that evening I was finished and just to top things off Josh decided that he was not going to go to bed. He fought me and we bounced and rocked and sang and read stories and sat starring at the ceiling fan going round until I had had enough. By 7:45 (after starting the bed time show at 6pm) I put him in his cot to play. I decided it was probably better for his safety and my sanity. Finally when Stephen came home he shooed me out of the room and fought Josh to sleep. 8:45 and eventually my son was asleep in bed. Oh my goodness what a marathon day.

So after all of that one feels pretty shaken up about the task of parenting again the next day. In the back of your mind is this tiny voice saying you are going to have another terrible day, you can’t do this parenting thing and your child is difficult and so on and so on until your head is spinning in negativity. Just when you think you were wrong to decide to be a mom your child and God get together and decide to reward you with a real gem. Something so special and new that all is forgiven. Now all you can think is that this is the best job in the world and that your child is wonderful and you wouldn’t exchange this time for anything. Today I received such a gift and I videoed it to share it with you. Just to prove that even on the worst days ‘Joy comes with the morning’.