Today is better than Friday

I love my son. He is a curious, intuitive, intelligent and energetic little boy. As you can see from the photos he loves playing outside or with his trains inside.

He will also smile most willingly for the camera (a photographer mom's delight)

I love our time together reading books, playing with trains and exploring outside. Since the arrival of our little girl, I also love snuggling with her and taking care of her. I look forward to doing many fun activities with her as well. While I cannot give focused attention to both kids at the same time, this has already created some competition for 'time with mommy'.

I enjoy posting pictures and random items about our family life on our blog. Sometimes I wonder if people think that our life is happy and wonderful all the time. Sure, our pictures are cute and we have a lot of fun together, but our life is far from perfect and happy all the time.

I want to take a moment to share about my experience with Preston on Friday evening. Friday was rough. Steven had to leave to meet with a friend for a bit and I was left to take care of the house and kids. It was only going to be 2 hours...not that bad...I can handle this...what could go wrong... What ended up happening was a bit of a mommy and Preston melt down. The first hour went well. Preston played with his toys, I read him some books, I fed Peyton, I snuggled with her, etc... As dinner approached, and our hunger increased, things started to melt down at the Dalbey home. I had to feed Peyton again and Preston decided that it would be OK to take a pillow and try to hit me and his sister on the head - not cool. He also decided to take some packaging and tear it up into many little pieces. In general, Preston was upset, disobedient and would not listen. I tried to remain calm. I tried to speak gently with him. I tried to ask him nicely to listen. I tried putting him in time out. After a while, I just lost it. I raised my voice to him and it scared him. It also scared me. I had vowed never to yell at my kids and just because I was tired and wanted Steven home, I took it out on my son. This was not a good moment.

What happened next was that we both started crying. I was crying because I was upset at myself. I think Preston was crying because I scared him. I held Preston in my arms and apologized to him for not speaking gently with him. I told him I loved him and asked for his forgiveness. He forgave me and the last 15 minutes of our time together went well. To be honest, I think the poor kid was hungry and I was simply exhausted. I am learning that life adjusting to two children is hard. I am also learning how to help my son adjust to all the changes that have taken place in his life the past week. All things considered, he is probably doing very well for a 2 and half year old. I continue to make extra efforts to extend grace to myself and plan special time for Preston and I to be together. I want to remind him that I love him despite the changes in his life. Here is a picture of some time we spent together this morning playing. So, today is better than Friday and I hope that each day continues to improve.