Yesterday we hosted playgroup, which was both wonderful and terrible all at the same time. Wonderful because we love having all these great people come over and play. What a fabulous way to pass the day! Terrible because between the sick and the snow, all my kids are off schedule, way behind on their sleep and cranky.
Ellery dealt with this by taking a three hour morning nap. Which was good, because the entire morning Shep was beyond high-maintenance. Everything that went wrong was a complete catastrophe, and resulted in him hurling his body to the ground, wailing in tears and frustration. And when I say all morning, I mean ALL MORNING. I swear I spent 30 minutes and three yogurt tubes trying to figure out that he wanted the yogurt tube cut in half, and he just wanted half, and no, not that half, I want the half with the cow on it and please hand it to me on a diamond encrusted platter, and don’t forget to tidy up on your way out. The whole morning was like that.
Neko was doing just fine until the very end, where a little thing threw her over the edge, and for the first time in a very long time, she threw a knock-down, full-on temper tantrum. Screaming, yelling, kicking, wailing. I’m not sure I even said goodbye to anyone. That anger transitioned to anger about going to quiet time, which she then kicked and screamed and wailed about not wanting to have quiet time and you would have thought I was asking her give away her favorite toy, it was such an awful request.
30 minutes later I got her settled, and was finally able to go to work, leaving a very wide-eyed babysitter in my wake.
When I returned home, everyone had napped and was back to normal.
After dinner, Neko reminded me I had promised her a fortune cookie, so she cracked it open and I read her fortune, “Do not give up; the beginning is always the hardest.” I explained that meant that sometimes things are hard at the beginning, but if you persevere, they get easier.
Neko got quiet and thoughtful for a moment and then said, “Just like quiet time today. That was very hard at the beginning. But it did get easier.” And then she smiled and hugged me, and I began to think that five is going to be a pretty wonderful year.