Sweet and Sour.

Great on chicken nuggets, not a good colour on my daughter. Thursday was sour. She's never been so moody. If I looked at her wrong, she burst into tears, running to the other side of the room (or backyard) collapsing in tears and crying uncontrollably. To say it wasn't a little maddening would be a lie. I couldn't do anything right for her and she just cried. ALL day long. It had me questioning whether I was cut out for motherhood. That may sound terrible, but I think it's important to document the bad with the good, so years from now when my family is reading this, they'll know that motherhood is hard. It isn't hugs, kisses and happiness all the time - and that's okay. I want to be real to them, even if it means that I confess that I wasn't a great parent all the time (and they weren't well-behaved kids all the time). I'm guilty of selective journaling - picking out the impressive stuff, or the fun stuff and leaving out the embarrassing and the mundane.

 

But Friday she was sweet. Deliciously sweet. We had a GOOD day. I'm talking a jumping-on-the-bed-together, reading-on-my-lap, playing-hide-and-seek, piggy-back-rides-around-the-living-room good day. One of those days that you envision before you actually become a parent. We could have been a Huggies commercial. 

Now, I don't say any of this to toot my own horn, but I wanted to record my feelings to be able to remind myself what a good parenting day feels like - it's been a while. We were both in sync today. We'd make eye contact and smile and laugh. We had tickle fights and she giggled a giggle that melted my heart. and reminded me how lucky I am to be her Mum. She made a concerted effort to look right at me and we'd have conversations. Granted, I didn't catch a good portion of what she said, but there was back and forth, which was considerably more pleasant than the screaming and whining I had to endure on Thursday. 

 

Today she was sweet and sour within minutes of eachother, up and down all evening. She woke up from a good nap with a bad attitude. She refused to tell me what she wanted, the best she would do is cry in the general direction of something. She couldn't be pleased. Maddening.She rarely cuddles with her Dad (breaks his heart) but with a well-placed episode of Duck Tales, a little Halloween candy and the world's most comfortable blanket, they banked some cute cuddle time.

After a few minutes of cuddling she jumped up all of a sudden and played Stop & Go, which she loved. Coloured, which she loved. Practiced shapes, which she loved. Then she got whiny again. Holy mood swings, Batman. We endured dinner and dreaded bedtime. Then she found a princess book (just starting to get into princesses) and got really excited about it. She identified all of them by the colours of their dresses (names will come later), a proud moment since up to this point everything has been "yeyo". We started to sing "I Am a Child of God" as part of our bedtime routine and she chimed in on a surprising number of words. It's in the rotation of bedtime songs, but we don't sing it very often. To hear her singing along melted my heart and ended the day on the sweetest note possible. Or so I thought. Then she sat perfectly still for the prayer with her arms folded and arms closed. And the cherry on top: she kissed me a goodnight kiss before running into her dad's arms for her bedtime stories. All is right in the world tonight. Couldn't love her more.

We have good days and we have bad days, but the good FAR outweigh the bad. Sometimes it's hard to remember that in the face of one of the bad ones. Sometimes you have to take the sour with the sweet.