no.

This morning as I chatted with a few mommy friends in the halls of THA,  I whipped out a video I just so happened to record yesterday afternoon.  It was only fitting as we had been chatting about sassy mouths and ugly words.

Just before I recorded the video, I had taken the girls to the local book store to purchase a book.  I made it clear before going into the store that we would each buy one book.    We walked into Burry’s and immediately saw my sister, Kacy, also shopping.  (Don’t you just love small towns.)  MC ran to the back of the store to the children’s section, McCanless wandered to the youth area and I chatted with Kacy for a bit.  What happened in the next 20 minutes could definitely go down as one of those “mommy moments” that you would love to erase from history (or least from memory.)

Screaming at the top of her lungs, “I HATE YOU!”  “I WISH YOU WERE IN PRISON!”  (Yeah, not sure where that came from…) “I WISH YOU WOULD DIE!” echoing throughout the store, all aimed at me.  Mary Clare was letting me know exactly how she felt,  simply for my refusal to buy her a doll hair brush.

I smiled, ignoring the mini tornado in front of me,  and placed our books on the counter to make our purchases.  What made it all worse was the fact that the two sweet ladies behind the counter were friends of ours.  One, a neighbor and one, a family friend since I was a child.  They both had that wide-eyed “deer in headlights” look about them as they watched Mary Clare.

We finally  made it  to the car, at which point I realized she had completely lost it-with no going back.  So, I did what every 2014 mother does, I used my cell to video the whole debacle.

I’ll spare you the video, but I’m keeping that little jewel for when she’s older and her own daughter is driving her nuts.

Over the years, I’ve tried to blog about their awards, funny comments, sweet surprises and also those “not-so-great” moments. (I’m no perfect mother by any stretch of the imagination and I should probably blog about those moments more often to spare my girls future disasters in their own mothering days.)  More importantly, however, I wish to provide them with a history of losses before accomplishments, of bad days leading up to good days.  Those, I feel, are all moments that mold us.

As I watched my baby, my heart,  scream, struggle to breathe  and hate me in that moment, I wanted so badly to cave, to give her exactly what she wanted, to please her.  I knew that her anger was temporary and that the lesson that she was learning was so much more important than making her happy in that very moment.

It dawned on me.  Saying “no” now is easy in comparison.  I know that as my girls get older, these times will only increase.  I’ll watch them hurt, disappointed and make many mistakes.

Last night as she lay curled up around me in her little bed,  I read the pink princess book that I actually purchased for her at Burry’s yesterday.   She leaned in, kissed me and told me it was her favorite book ever.

I think I finally allowed myself to know that her disappointment was okay and not in vain.   I hate allowing my babies to cry.  I hate disappointing them.

I’m sure she’ll cry over much more than a doll hair brush and I know I’ll say, “no” again, and again and again.  I’ll question my actions, she’ll hate me again, and I’ll accept her hugs at the end of the day.  Always.

I hope she knows this now and forever.

 

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