Edison has been toileting himself since he was about 17 months old. But after a morning of tense conversation with MC for which Edison wasn't present, my day went from bad to worse as he promptly went and peed in our bedroom on the floor.
I immediately knew he was acting out something, but it didn't stop me from feeling incredibly angry. I wanted to scream at him. I did get a bit loud but not t the point where I would call it yelling. Rather an agonized pain kind of groan as I fought back the urge to pick him up and put him over my knee.
I told him "I am very very angry with you right now, we don't pee on floors- we use the toilet." Then I gave him a flat fold nappy from my old stash and made him clean up the pee. He spent quite a while cleaning it up.
When he was done he came to me and said "Mum, I got all the wee out." and all I could do was squeak "good, put the nappy in the laundry" feeling completely like I would spontaneously combust as I spoke.
No sooner did Edison put the nappy in the laundry and came out than he started a fight with Kicky who had gone to see what he was doing and when I more calmly than I felt reminded him to use his gentle hands with his brother he lay down and started to cry, I tried to ask him what was wrong- why was he doing this? then he got up and walked off.
No sooner had he disappeared from my sight I heard a shaking sound. He had taken the salt shaker and was shaking salt all over the lounge room! (this was not an ordinary table shaker, it was a 1kg cooking salt shaker it takes a whole 1kilo bag of salt and it was full!) I was no longer angry, I was baffled. The more I powered up on him the more he was acting out.
Kicky came to me for a time-in and brought a calm down toy with him. I knew Edison had done something to him in there because he was an angry little toddler and he needed a moment to calm down! He held the cement truck tightly and stared at it for a long moment before snuggling in and having a few tears. Then he seemed to feel better and got down and went to play again.
I went to check on how Edison's salt sweep up was progressing. He'd mostly done a pretty good job and had only missed one little spot. I brought him onto my lap for a time in. "why did you do those things Eddie?" I asked not expecting to get a real answer. He told me "Edison is being bad" I was surprised but pleased that he'd told me this so I continued our time-in by asking "why is Ed being bad? do you feel angry?" he looked thoughtful for a moment and said "no, not angry. just bad."
It had dawned on me probably from the floor peeing on that maybe he had heard the conversation from his room but not fully understood it nor come out during the conversation for fear of what he might see or hear.
I took him to our bed and lay down with him for a few minutes, I scratched his back. cuddled him tight and told him "Mummy and Daddy love each other very much, and we love you. There's nothing for you to worry about."
With that said we headed back out to our living areas and joined Kicky who had now found the salt himself. And was licking the top of the shaker. I let it slide and just asked for him to pass it to me which he did and I gave it a clean with a damp cloth then put the shaker away.
Our day has barely begun, I don't know how this day is going to end. Only that it will and that after this morning really.. the only way is up. And yes- "I've got this covered"
No comments:
Post a Comment