Yesterday

Yesterday was ... not my best day as a parent.

Let me start off with a brief tangent (huge surprise). So, I know this person who likes to point out that every problem I have as a parent, from Nathan throwing tantrums to Nathan forgetting to bring his backpack to school, stems from the fact that I do not have my kid on a solid schedule. To those of you non-parents, let me tell you: "Your kid isn't on a schedule," them's fightin' words.

The weird thing is that when you have a baby, schedule is kind of a bad word, at least in the circle of attachment parenting, feed-on-demand people.

And OMG I just want to stop and scream when I look over what I typed. Could all the buzzwords and philosophies and parenting camps of our generation be more ridiculous?

Oh, and BTW, have you worried yet today that your kid suffers from Nature Deficit Disorder?

Anyway, I think my point was that while you're supposed to let your baby dictate his/her own schedule, you are definitely supposed to impose a strict schedule on your toddler/preschooler. I kid you not, my kids are on a very rigid schedule is a brag among parents.

"Oh, he's just a little frustrated because his music class got canceled, and he's used to having that in his schedule. You see, my kids are on a very rigid schedule."

Let me note that while I am dissing braggy moms here, I'm not dissing schedules. I get the point of schedules. And I'm jealous that I can't get my kid on a schedule that is so strict that we could tell you exactly what we'll be doing next Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. I wish I could be that organized.

The thing is, I like schedules. I like predictability and routine almost as much as any preschooler does. Nathan has a bedtime, and when he doesn't fall asleep for like another hour (or two) after he lies down, I start to get all kinds of frustrated because ohmygosh now he's going to be crabby tomorrow and he has school and he'll probably get three time-outs there and then I have to enforce that at home and ohmygosh why am I such a failure?

When he used to nap, I tried very hard to be home for the naps, at least when it came to day-to-day activities. Why sign a two-year-old up for a weekly art class at 1:00 p.m. when he should be napping? However, I was never one of those moms who could be like, "Oh, sorry, we will not be at Grandpa's 100th birthday party because it interferes with naptime." So, I guess what I'm saying is that while I generally like to enforce a bit of a routine, I am not uber-strict about it.

I feel guilty about that.

Anyway, my point is that, try as I may, I cannot control my child's schedule to the point that outside factors don't interfere sometimes. The child doesn't get up at exactly the same time every single day. He doesn't fall asleep at exactly the same time every night, even if he does have a bedtime. We don't eat meals at the exact same time every day. And I'm not good at scheduling specific times for at-home activities like TV time or art time or free-play time. I wonder if the lack of super-predictability is hurting my child.

Let me note that, once again, blogger of awesomeness Ask Moxie rescued me from my negative thoughts with a timely post yesterday about scheduling. Moxie pointed out that there's a difference between a "schedule" and a "routine." I do like to think that we have routines. I mean, we mostly eat meals at around the same time every day. We have a bedtime routine.

So, that was a not-so-brief tangent to explain the fact that every time my kid acts out, I blame myself for not having him on a better schedule. And if our regular routine is somewhat loose, this past weekend things went all to hell. He was up at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, rearin' to go because he was so excited about the trip. And then we didn't leave until 1:30, eight full hours after he was ready to go, and once we got there we still had all the excitement of Being in a hotel! and Swimming in a pool! And he didn't get to bed until like 9:00 that night, and was up early the next morning for more trip-based excitement, and then on the drive home he took like maybe a half-hour nap in the car and that prevented him from falling asleep before 9 p.m.

By Monday, which was yesterday, he was kind of a wreck. And so we went to the grocery store, and he was his usual begging self, but also added in some fun bonuses like "climbing all over the cart" and "yelling 'shut up' loudly." At one point he begged for some jell-o, and I said we would not get it if he couldn't turn off his dirty mouth, and of course when he didn't I had to say we wouldn't get the jell-o. Which is always very frustrating because even though it's good to follow up on your threats, the effect is a massive outcry that causes other people in the grocery store to become disturbed and judgmental.

I turned on all the calm, rational statements I learned to say in my teacher education classes: "Look, I told you that if you chose to keep saying 'shut up,' you would not get the jell-o. And then did you choose to keep saying 'shut up'?"

The response I got was, "AHHHHHHHHHHH! I don't want to talk to you! I HATE YOU!"

Wow, that's not at all how the kids in the training videos responded.

Anyway, it went on like this throughout the store, and I finally got to the checkout, where I got a crabby clerk and Nathan set the record for how many unpleasant behaviors a child can cram in during the course of a single checkout. Yelling! Climbing on the cart! Taking out a fruit roll-up and chewing on it! Grabbing candy off the rack by the checkout and saying, "I'm gonna open this!"

Oh God.

And BTW, somehow the jell-o still made it home with us.

My problem with discipline is that I'm always second-guessing myself. Like, should he get a time-out when we get home from the store, or is that too late because by then has he gotten control of his emotions and his frenzy of misbehavior is over?

The same sort of frenzy happened at bedtime, when he was kicking his legs so that I couldn't put his pajamas on, and I said he lost his bedtime book privileges. Although I stood by that, I couldn't help but feel guilty because seriously, I was taking away reading time? Also known as the most wholesome, educational thing I do all day as a parent?

So he got so out-of-control mad that he threw a massive tantrum and I locked myself in the bathroom. I wondered, should there be a time-out for this, or would that just get him more worked up and prolong the bedtime that was probably the only solution for his behavior?

Why aren't the answers so cut-and-dry? Why isn't my parenting taking place in a training video?

Anyway, when he got his totally worked-up self calmed down and went to sleep, it was 8:00 p.m. He slept a solid 13 hours, so I hope today will be better. And this is another one of those posts where I feel totally afraid to hit "publish," because I feel like I have just exposed myself as the worst parent ever and people are going to judge me. But I like to think that Nathan's behavior was just the result of exhaustion. I mean, after all, he was off his schedule. He gets a little worked up when he is off his schedule.

See, I can brag too.