Proud Mothering Moment: Epic Fail

When I picked Autumn up from school today, I noticed she was limping.  I asked her if she got hurt and she said no.  I looked down and noticed the whole bottom part of her left shoe was missing!  The whole thing had just come completely off!  If you ever wanted to know what the part of a shoe looks like, here’s a picture for you.  I wonder what the metal piece down the middle of the sole of the shoe is for???

This is what the shoes look like side by side.  We all got a good laugh out of it and then Papa busted out the gorilla glue to try and glue the sole of the shoe back on.  We were joking w/ Autumn and saying that she just runs so fast that she ran right out of her shoes!  I said that now she knows how I feel since my left leg is shorter than my right.  LOL!

They sent this cute little picture home from “college”.  Last month they talked about art, so they had these pics of all the kids on their cubbies.  I loved it b/c Autumn is such an artist, and am going to put it in my Project Life book.

This is my story about the Proud Mothering Moment: Epic Fail.  Tonight after dinner I told Autumn it was time to do some “homework.”  I told her to write her alphabet and she did pretty good until the letter “H” and then she got lazy and decided to be silly.  I got her back on task by saying we should write a note to Kylie.  She was all about that for the first 2 words. 

Then I learned something about her…she is a perfectionist.  She wrote one letter wrong and X-ed it out and then wanted to start over on another page.  It took us about 12 minutes just to write “Dear Kylie” so I wasn’t about to start over.  She wanted to write in random places on the paper, but I kept telling her to write at the top instead of the bottom, which is how you write a letter.  She started to be a stinker, so I told her Kylie wouldn’t be able to come and babysit her & Andrew on Saturday if she didn’t start behaving.  That put her into full meltdown mode.  Dad tried talking to her, Mom tried talking to her, but she was inconsolable.  So, we all decided it was time to go b/c their house is a “no whining zone.”

I packed her up and we came home.  We got home and she was still sniffling and feeling sorry for herself.  She wanted to just go sulk in her room, but I told her she needed to finish her letter.  There was lots of protesting and crying from her, but I wanted her to learn about seeing something through to the end.  I decided to help things along by writing the words small so she could then write the same words below.  I also drew lines so she knew how much room she had to write a word before putting a space between the other words.

As you can see above, it is not very pretty but I am SO PROUD of her for persevering when she wanted to give up.  We hugged and talked about what had happened and how we could both handle things better next time.  Then we sat on the couch together and read a few books.  She said she wanted to play “Sharks” which is where we pretend that the couch is a ship and the ground is a sea full of angry sharks.  We try not to touch the ground, and tease each other about the sharks biting us.  We were wrestling around and she ended up touching the ground and FREAKED OUT b/c she was scared the sharks were going to bite her.  I couldn’t help but laugh b/c it was just a game yet she was way overreacting.  That made her mad b/c she thought I was laughing at her, so she tried hitting me.  I held up my hand to stop her and one of my nails ended up scratching her arm.  That sent her into even greater hysterics.

I tried consoling her, but she was having no part of that.  She ran into her room and threw herself on the bed and sobbed.  I just at on the couch shaking my head and wondering how things had spiraled so badly out of control.  I felt like I should be getting the Worst Mother Of The Day award.  I gave her a few minutes to calm down, and then I went and laid down next to her on her bed and snuggled and told her how much I loved her and how proud I was of her.  She asked me to stay there w/ her, so I did until she fell asleep.  It only took about 5 minutes for her to fall asleep, so it made me feel a tiny bit better to know she was overly tired.

I just feel so horrible that she had such a hard time.  I wonder if there were things I could have done differently to help diffuse the situation.  It’s a good reminder that life isn’t just happy and wonderful all the time.  I know that days like this are just part of life.  Honestly, I’m really lucky and blessed that they don’t happen very often.  I hope Autumn (and I) have a better day tomorrow.