Good Grief

It is 7:40 a.m.  It is nothing short of a miracle that I have woken up, on my own--no alarm clock, no child yelling "Mama?!!" or "Is it morning?!" down the stairs (Coen and Lucy's wake-up calls respectively).  I can't even remember the last time I woke up without something or someone waking me...

I can hear my children on the baby monitor we still use, whispering together in Lucy's room.

Not too long after this, I hear them at the top of the steps. "Mommy!", they both yell.

Tad and I let our kids watch TV on the weekend mornings.  This morning they have chosen to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". 

My favorite part in the show is when Snoopy, who is pretending to be the WWI flying ace, is leaning on Schroeder's piano, alternately happily dancing and sobbing, depending on the music.  At one of the sad parts, Snoopy is crying and suddenly accidentally howls.  After this, he covers his face and looks around embarrassed, hoping no one has seen this lapse into his true canine self. 

I guess we're all a little embarrassed, when we accidentally lapse into the more animal parts of ourselves.  Friday night, we took the kids to a night time Halloween event that went too late for our Lucy.   We were heading for the shuttle bus that would take us home, and I made the mistake of rushing her. Not listening to her polite ask to put her mask on that she'd just made.  I was stressed out and worried about when the bus was leaving, so I said no.  She had a large tantrum, in line for the bus, nearly two hours past her bedtime. I felt like both she and I were out of control. She was screaming, and crying and throwing herself on the ground.  People all around looked on.  I'm sure they were thinking 'boy, I'm sure glad its not me' or 'I know what that's like' But in my world, with my flailing daughter and being near tears myself, all I could imagine was that people were thinking what a out of control child and a terrible mother we were.  I felt like I too could throw myself on the ground and howl.

But I got my over tired daughter home, and rocked her until she was calm and got her into her pajamas and somehow even managed to read her a bedtime story and sing her a lullaby. I think she was sleeping before I left the room.

I guess sometimes we all do it.  Make errors in judgement, keeping a kid up too late or pushing everyone past their limits.  Most of us who have children have been somewhere public, our child having lost all sense of calm, screaming and tantruming for the whole world to see...  But today, we are all okay again, sleeping in and spending our Sunday doing mostly nothing.

For your amusement, here is the link to that scene. The part where Snoopy howls and then is embarrassed is towards the end.

My favorite scene in the Great Pumpkin

Good Grief!