Road to an Imperfect Life: Week 2 - Images of Frustration Exist Too

I almost broke my nose yesterday.

Correction. My daughter almost broke my nose yesterday. On accident. No, not really. Kind of on purpose. 

I can't argue with many moms on the playground when they look at my daughter who is more an observer kind of kid rather than a jump-er kind of kid and say, "Wow. She's so calm." Truth is when they see her, she is calm. But when she's home, in the comfort of our people, calm is a train that left the station a long time ago.

Yesterday, calm didn't just leave the station, it mother-effing went off the rails and crashed into an oncoming train. 

I don't even know how it started. That's not true I do know. The mother-effing iPad and "fotos" that's how it happened. She woke up and the day started like every other day but within an hour she spotted the iPad on top of our bookcase. All the way, up top, as if it was hidden because it was. She found it anyway. 

When I told her she couldn't play with the iPad like I usually do in the mornings, she went to our nanny, who also said no because her mother JUST SAID NO. Our calm little train exploded and screamed, from the gut, at her loudest of levels directly IN our nanny's face. Lock down Time out #1.

Time out means me dragging her into her room and locking the door until she calms down and then says I'm sorry. Sounds easy enough except she's my daughter. Apologies don't come easy. Eventually when both conditions are met we leave the room but I should have known where yesterday morning was headed since Time out #1 ended by 8:15. 

The morning continued. I made breakfast like I always do. I told her to sit in her high chair like I always do. I bribed showed her her juice like I always do because normally this works to get her in her chair quicker. She gets OJ once a day for breakfast so it is an easy get-in-your-chair treat. She wins. I win. Sometimes it is a bit more work, a bit more of a struggle but eventually I pick her up and take her to her chair without too much difficulty. 

Yesterday was different. I sat her in her chair and she kicked a little and whined a bit but she was conserving her energy for this: When I had her in the chair that she obviously didn't want to sit in, she pulled her head full of curls as far back as she could, wound up and threw her 8 pound skeleton at my face, clocking me with her colossal head in the nose. Her head that had always been in the 95th percentile at the doctor's office - so it's big! - just took to my nose like a Gallagher sledgehammer to a watermelon. 

For a minute, I thought she broke it. For a few hours I had a headache. 

She is a sweet child... usually. That's the child most people usually see, the one that I post pictures of on Facebook because those are the easy pictures to post. I don't think these pictures show that I'm some great parent that has all the answers they're just quicker to post: the ones where she looks adorable and smiley and not like a sledge hammer. But these images exist too: the ones of her not listening to her mother, the ones of me having less patience than I wish I had, the ones of both of us screaming and crying and being less than perfect. 

And the road continues...