Headspace, the conclusionHeadspace, the conclusion

Before you ask or even wonder to yourself why I’m inserting these photos of Jett over the years, it’s for me.  I want to remind myself how much I love him, even when he makes me feel like a crazy person.  So, if my blood pressure starts to rise as I write this, I’ll just find a picture of him that makes me smile and allows myself to calm down.  {Also, fair warning: poop talk ahead.}

If you missed the first part of this post, catch up here.

We made it back home from the park and I dealt with Jett immediately.  Jude was allowed to play outside for a few minutes by himself while Jett and I had a talk.  I surprised myself with my calmness.  But I did have about 30 minutes to simmer down after the act of defiance.  I told him how dangerous it is not to listen to Mommy, and that when Mommy or Daddy tells him no, it means we’re trying to keep him safe.  I gave him a few swats with the wooden spoon and he had to sit in his room for a couple of minutes.

The middle chunk of our day was uneventful.

My mom called around 5 pm and asked if we could meet them (my parents) & siblings in a couple of hours to eat at Granite City, in celebration of my brother’s graduation.  I thought that it would work for us, especially since that was the only time for a while that all of us could make it work.

During the time I was talking to Mom on the phone, Jude stepped outside and I followed him, talking on the cordless phone.  Pretty soon, Jett sensed that Jude was outside and he ran out, too.

I told both boys to head back into the house while I was still on the phone.  This, as you may have guessed, did not work.  So between hanging up with Mom and calling Josh to let him know of our changed plans, I told the boys again – more sternly – to get back in the house.  Jude obliged.  Jett was dragging his feet and wasn’t gonna go without a fight.

My phone conversation with Josh lasted only a minute and I told Jett again to get back inside.  I began to tell him the exciting news about getting to see Abba that night, but every time I tried to talk to him, he screamed and ran away.  I have a feeling if he would have heard me, he’d have been in the house in seconds wanting to go see Abba.

Instead he took off.  I thought he was heading to the back yard, and I went inside in a matter of seconds to retrieve a wooden spoon for reinforcement.  By the time I got back outside, I couldn’t find him.

I wasn’t worried, I was sure he was in the back yard.  But when I got back there, I couldn’t find him.  He wasn’t in the garage.  He wasn’t behind the garage.  He wasn’t on either side of the house.  I started getting ticked off.  Not worried, mad.  I looked up and down the sidewalk in front of our house in both directions.  Nothing.

There were adults outside in one direction, about 2 houses down.  They didn’t look concerned or like they had seen anything.  Same thing at the neighbors house across the street.  I didn’t see that boy anywhere.  I was yelling and yelling for him.  I even made Jude come outside and help call for Jett, thinking that Jett might respond to Jude’s voice when he wouldn’t respond to mine.

At that point, I started thinking about who I was going to call to help me find my boy.  And then I started worrying.  Only seconds later, Jett came walking towards me from our next door neighbor’s driveway.  I don’t know if he was in their yard; I hadn’t seen him when I was running around looking back there.  He’s also been known to go into their garage or even in their house, never alone, but when we’re in their yard talking with them.  No one was home from work yet, so I’ll probably never know if he was hiding out in either of those places.

I felt relief that he was ok, but that was followed very quickly by anger.  He doesn’t realize that he could get very seriously hurt running from me or hiding from me!  IRK!  How do you communicate that to a three year old with a strong will of his own?

I just don’t know.  I don’t have the answers.  What I did was marched him into the house.  This time, we didn’t have a heart to heart.  I had the spoon.  I pulled his shorts off, peeled his training pants off and bent him over my knee.  And that’s when I saw it: first on my black yoga pants.  Smears of poop.  And then on his bottom.  And then on the training pants that I’d just removed.  And then on the carpet.  And then on a blanket.  And then I started walking back and forth in the hallway to see if I could find the origin.

I couldn’t find it.  Had it slipped out of his shorts since he was wearing training pants?  Outside?  Inside?  Where was it all coming from?  There were spots all over the hallway.  And then I looked at my shoe.  Bingo.  I had stepped squarely in it at some point and was tracking it all over the house.

I can’t remember now if I started crying right away, or if it was when I was telling Josh what had just happened over the phone, or maybe it was when I began scrubbing the stains on my hands and knees.

By this point of the day, I was physically and emotionally tired, raw.  Mostly from the utter lack of control I had wielded over my 3 year old.  The running from the park, trying to catch up to him that morning.  The running around outside trying to find him later in the day.  The frustration.  The absurdness (I felt at the time) about the fact we’re adding to our family in the next few short months – or maybe the absurdness came in my thinking that I could handle it.

And then, the demoralizing clean up duty.  I’m not exaggerating when I say I had 14 or 15 different areas on the carpet caked with poop.  Corn and everything, folks.  Not kidding, and sorry if that was too much information.  I’m just painting the picture.  I spent a solid hour and 15+ minutes on my hands and knees scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing… ok, and gently crying, too – wondering what I had gotten myself into being a mom.

I thought we’d give up and not try to make the dinner date with my side of the family that was quickly approaching.  I still needed to shower and we didn’t want it to seem like a reward to the children.  But, I needed it.  We went and we ended up having a great time.

The dinner was a mood changer.  I needed to tell someone else or several someone else’s what I’d been through that day.  I needed to say the things out loud that I was feeling, even if that meant having tears well up in my eyes; mostly those feelings had to do with my inadequacy as a parent.  I mean, I know in my heart that God has given this responsibility to me for a reason, but in my head I don’t know why.  I don’t feel like I’m good enough or smart enough or have the correct reactions, or discipline the most effective way.  I want to have control.  I want to keep them safe.  That’s something I often joke about – just keeping them alive – but seriously, that’s the primary goal here.  And then there are times when I feel lucky having accomplished that.

But, yes, today is a new day and I’m in a much better headspace.  I was feeling pretty bitter about the events of last Friday for longer than I’d care to admit, but I’m good now.  I’ll take it as it comes and be thankful for the sweet moments, those precious rewards that come in smiles or “I love you’s” or in their actions as they clamor to sit beside me on the couch or follow me from room to room wanting to help.

No guarantees, but we might just be able to pull this parenting thing off after all.