Sometimes you just know it's going to be a bad day

Nov. 24, 2008



So sometimes you wake up in the morning and you just sense that it's not going to be the greatest day. I had one of those last week, and just as I sensed - it sucked. Started out with Riley alseep in his bouncer, and Julie gets up to take a shower. I am just finished getting dressed, when I just hear this insane yelling coming from Parkers room.

I go to check it out, and he is up and he is PISSED. I don't actually know about what yet, but I suspect that it's because he's had a cold and fever for the last week - so he generally feels like crap. Fair enough, I can understand that. I try to talk to him in a very concerned fatherly way "What's the matter big guy?"

It kind of goes downhill from there. I wasn't the one he wanted. Mommy is the cuddler, I am the entertainment (dance funny man!). So PK comes running at me yelling "NOOOOO! NOOOOO!" trying to push me out of the room. Buddy, I am something like seven times your weight - I'm not exactly going anywhere. Whatever - I try to stay calm and try to help him catch his breath, and, you know, usual actual words other than "NO!" Didn't work. This kid yelled at me for ten minutes at the top of his lungs. He couldn't speak, he was so hoarse.

It sucked. I mean really sucked. Now I'm getting late for work, but I'm not going to let this fire breathing four year old push me around, so I dig my heels in determined to work it out rather than just let Julie come in a calm the situation down. But here's the thing, when someone is just screaming at you; it's really REALLY hard to stay in control. It can very quickly spiral wickedly downhill. I mean, I get it - he's sick and he was jolted out of sleep because he can't breath because of his stuffy nose, but he was totally pissing me off. The scene actually looked a little like this:





That is not good times. But after another ten minutes of this, and making no progress - I changed tactics. I got really really calm; I channelled my inner Stuart Smalley.

"Buddy, I get it. You're really mad right now. If you are mad at me, I'm really sorry I upset you so much. But I need you to take a deep breath and tell me why you are so upset."

I think me being so calm (and apologizing, which Julie will suggest is something I never do (but when you are never wrong, what can you expect?)) kind of freaked him out, because it worked. After 30 minutes of pure hell - he switched an off switch and it was like it never happened. Might be easy for the three year old, but my head was spinning.

I think it's fair to say that PK is also having some adjustment issues. Nothing directed towards Riley or anything, who he seems to adore - but some of the stuff he's doing it making my head want to explode.