Oh, the Humanity!

One of the hardest things about parenting is that you find yourself trying to parent HUMAN children. And, unfortunately, you find yourself, gasp... human, as well. So terribly human.

You want a story now, I suppose...

Lee had yesterday off for Columbus Day, so we went to the pumpkin patch and the apple orchard. (Oh, and, all of Illinois' children who were off school? They were all at the apple orchard. All of them.)

That made today a Monday, for all intents and purposes. Habtamu, predictably, cannot take the resumption of our regular days. He went into, well, let's just call it "ornery" mode while using his spelling words in sentences. I corrected him on one very small point of grammar, gave him options of what would be right, and he, predictably, made it seem like the end of the world. "I Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't!" "It will be wrong whatever I do!"

I try very hard to be a reasonable person, but this behavior makes my anger level go from 0 to 120 in 2 seconds. It's not like I hit his knuckles when he uses English incorrectly. I don't berate, belittle, or in any way indicate that I am displeased when I correct him. His overreaction to my correction is, well, there's obviously something deeper going on. Me getting angry doesn't help, but, OY! Do I want to whap the back of his head with my pencil? Yes! But, do I? No. Instead I take the higher road, and try not to take his anger personally.

Then, I try to think of the good days like yesterday...