Today we had a moment.
If you're a mom you know how rare those moments can be. The kind of moment where you feel like you and your children are in exactly the right place and the right time and you've made all the right decision to get them into that place and they are going to be better people for having been there with you and will look at it years later with joy in their hearts that you were able to give them that one perfect moment. Well, maybe that's all a little much to fit into one moment but that's how good it felt at the time. Let me explain our moment and perhaps you'll understand.
The Tyke woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. He was cranky and fussy and went into a tailspin over the slightest thing (I unbuttoned his jammy shirt when he wanted to unbutton his jammy shirt, we didn't have the breakfast he wanted, I didn't wipe the spilled yogurt up quickly enough and he got it on his hands, etc, ad nauseum). By about 9 I was ready to throw him out the window but thought a snuggle on the couch would be more productive at calming him down and pressing the reset button on the whole day. I told him to go upstairs and get his wooly (the wool baby blanket I made him when he was a baby) and we settled onto the couch together, him cuddled around the big belly and me surreptitiously reading my kindle over his head.
This made the Pudding mad. She'd been good all morning but was she getting any attention, NO! If being naughty was what it took to get a snuggle around here that's just what she'd be. You can imagine the rest. I finally sent her up to her room because I didn't want to reward the jealous behavior.
Once I had Ike settled and felt like he was well on his way to reset I went up and cuddled with Pudding for a while. We talked about why mommy needed some time with the Tyke that morning and that it didn't mean that I loved the Pudding less, it just meant that the Tyke needed more at that moment. After a while of this she got over the "I wish he'd never been born!" stuff and asked if he could come and snuggle with us. We called the Tyke upstairs and he crawled in with us and wonder of wonders they lay together and didn't wrestle or fight, they just cuddled with each other and with me. We pet the can, we pet each other, they chatted and for that one blissful moment, we just loved on each other. This was at about 10:30 am, the breakfast dishes weren't done yet, we'd done no school work, the shopping needed to be done and laundry was waiting but for once I'm glad I ignored it all and just attended to my children's emotional needs at that moment.
