Day 103: Going Haywire

This morning I had some catch-up work to do that I'd neglected over the course of three day conference, so I was focused on that until lunchtime. I let the kids entertain themselves on their various electronic devices so I could focus. But once I was done, I declared it was time to go outside. William was ready to play with me, and Taiya said she would as soon as her show was done. So, William and I spent a little time checking a failing potato bed (we harvested about as much as we planted - too shady I believe, and not enough compost), collected eggs, and played in the hose. I shouted to Taiya again to turn her computer off, and she didn't, so I kinda lost my patience. I took the laptop away from her, and William, always trying to be helpful, said, "Put it high up on a shelf so she can't reach it!" and I said, "I won't, I'll just put it away in its normal spot, because I trust that Taiya won't get it again." Well, she did get it again, so, being a little short of patience, I just turned off our internet and went back outside, leaving a steaming mad Taiya behind me. 

William, meanwhile, wanted to ride his bike in the driveway. I got it out for him and he climbed on. Our driveway has the slightest of slopes, and William asked for help so I gave him the slightest nudge to get him going. As if Taiya's bad mood were contagious, this led to him having a meltdown, screaming at me, "You pushed me too fast!!!" and refusing to ride his bike. He asked if we could go to the creek, and since Jeremy wasn't home and I didn't want to leave Taiya alone in her current mood, I said not right now. So, for the first time in his life, William ran away. He turned and high tailed it down the driveway running at top speed and would not stop, even when I embraced the southern mothering strategy of using first, middle, and last names when a child is really in trouble. So now I had a raging child in the house, a fleeing child outside of the house, and me in the middle. I figured Taiya probably would be less likely to hurt herself in this scenario, so I called Jeremy (who was conveniently running errands) and vented for thirty seconds about the situation, then took Daisy and walked after William so he wouldn't drown himself alone at the creek. I mean, I know that in foot-deep water this is unlikely, but still. He's five. 

When I got to the creek, he was standing there with the maddest of mad faces, brow furrowed, jaw clenched, eyes burning, fists clenched at his sides. The humor of the situation suddenly struck me because his face was exactly how I felt on the inside after he ran away. It was starting to rain. He said, mad and almost crying, "I wasn't going to go IN the water, I just wanted to watch the rain on top of the water." So in an effort to deescalate, I sat down and said, "Fine. Let's do that, that sounds good. We'll watch the water for three minutes, then go back to the house where I left Taiya." So we did, and he played at the edge of the water. When my timer went off (I have taken to setting my phone timer for these kinds of issues, because they argue less when it's the phone that says we have to go, not me) we headed up to the house, but there coming down the hill was Taiya to join us at the creek. She was still mad, so I persuaded them both that we should all go back to the creek to hang out and explore. 

As soon as we got there and started wading and playing, everyone's anger, my own included, dissipated. We didn't talk about it, I didn't try to make them "learn a lesson" about their behavior, we just quietly explored, and it was transformative. It turned the day around. We found all kinds of interesting things to look at - flowers, snake skins, rocks, sticks, leaves, dead fish. Eventually we went back to the house, my pockets filled with rocks Taiya had collected, but even with that load I was feeling a lot lighter than when I had tramped down the hill, angry at William for doing nothing more than being human and exerting his budding independence.