2.5 years old: "Terrible" and "Terrific"

This has been one crazy month with James! Recently, one of my friends and I were joking that if our little boys weren't soooo dang cute, they probably wouldn't be alive! Let me share with you one incident with our "terrific" little James. This post is unusually lengthy, but please bear with me...

This happened earlier this week. When I left him upstairs in his room for an afternoon nap, there was the typical crying and kicking-the-door routine. That had become "typical" within that week...he hasn't always kicked his door. I knew he was tired this particular day because he'd been up later than usual the night before and had woken up earlier than normal as well. He hadn't napped the day before,either, and so you'd think he'd settle down, right? Wrong!!!! He continued to cry full volume for about 10 minutes than it was the whining cry that I could hear from downstairs for another 20 minutes. Then it was like there were periods of silence with his voice coming in and out making various whining sounds. I was certain that he was settling down to go to sleep. I usually give him an hour on his own to settle down to sleep if I can before going into his room and declaring that naptime is over.

Well, after about 45 minutes of him being on his own, I started to hear the pitch of his voice rise again. I could hear him calling my name and then I wasn't able to make out the rest of what he was saying. (He'd also just started this calling out, "Maww-mee" through his door just the previous week.) If your child wouldn't stop calling your name when they were supposed to be going to sleep, you'd try to ignore that behavior, right? I usually do, but I shouldn't have ignored it this time!

In addition to the calling and whining through the door that started up again, I also could hear an additional unusual sound--like something was scratching at the door like a puppy does when it wants inside or outside.

I ignored it for another 5-10 minutes or so. By this time, I knew the hour was ending, and I'd have to go up there to handle a now more-tired-than-ever James with no real break from him due to the constant noise reverberating from the upper floor of the house. I slowly made my way upstairs all the while hearing his crying voice and the scratching noises on the door.

I forgot to mention a slight but very important detail to the story--I had taken off my glasses while reading James a story before his nap. I had hidden them under his bed, and I had forgotten to retrieve them when I had left his room in haste. Easy to see where this story is going, right?

Yes, I open the door to his room, and there my "terrific" little two and a half year old was sitting! His eyes were red and puffy from all the crying. His nose and face were covered in snot. And in his hands were my precious specs--in quite a contorted formation.

"Mommy's glasses are broken!" James said to me through his heaving breaths as he was trying to stop his sobbing. In a flash, I felt hot anger shoot through me, but at the same moment I felt a deep chagrin settling in. How stupid I was for leaving my glasses in his room and especially where he could find them and reach them!!!

I grabbed the glasses from his hands, and with no words, closed the door firmly back on him. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for James. His crying reached levels I had never heard come from him before. He was truly devastated. I ran to my room and slumped down on my knees praying to God to know what to do...how to handle this situation with James and my broken glasses.

I could hear James repeatedly sobbing through the doors and walls, "Mommy's glasses broken. Mommy's mad." I immediately got up from my knees and went to his door. I was surprisingly calm, and when I opened the door, I could see the sadness and fear in his eyes. I knew that what he needed at that moment was no scolding from me but love. So, I sat down on the floor near his bedside and gathered him up in my arms and just held him. It took several minutes for him to calm down, and I just held him. Finally, when his heaving sighs had ceased and he looked up at me and asked, "Mommy, go play with me in the playroom?"

I knew it was time to talk to James about his breaking my glasses. I told James that we couldn't play anymore that afternoon because my glasses were broken and that he needed to help me take the glasses to the "glasses doctor," right away. Unfortunately, they couldn't save my frames at the eye place. Thankfully, the lenses were still good, and I was lucky enough to just have to replace the frames which they still had in stock!

What have I taken away from this $150 lesson? To never take off my glasses again! Yeah, right!!! On a deeper level, I was glad that I was able to keep a lid on my anger that day. Hopefully, I can get through these next few months with James during his "terrible" moments of growing and declaring his independence!