The other day, I lost my parenting composure for a moment, and I handed down probably more discipline to my four-year-old son in a quick five minutes than he gets in an entire month.
Don’t worry though, there was no spanking or controversial punishments dealt out. Maybe a little bit of yelling and a five-minute timeout filled with tears, but I feel like the moment deserved it, even if the cause of me losing it for that moment was likely related to something that had nothing to do with the four-year-old’s actions.
But he was in fact strangling the cat. Looking back now with a fresh perspective, I realize he probably wasn’t purposely strangling the cat to hurt him, but playing with him and exploring the ancient animal, who according to some quick Google calculations, is the equivalent age of a 101-year-old human (21 years old in human years).
My son is obviously an inquisitive and rather typical four-year-old boy. He can get rough, and that very same night decided to gouge his big brother’s face with his bare hand because the seven-year-old didn’t want to play the same game on the iPad as his baby brother. Needless to say, our planned trip to go to a movie that night was canceled – for the second time in five days.
On the other hand, the cat that was nearly strangled is more comparable to a lazy zombie. He mews aimlessly through the night and often gives rather blank stares, and often misses the kitty litter box.
So, when Brodie decided to “cuddle” with the cat, and then proceeded to see how skinny the cat’s neck was, it resulted in the cat gasping for air and a confused four-year-old boy who didn’t understand what was going on.
Sadly, this all played out as I was frustrated and tired. A day filled with appointments and about three trips back and forth to town (but it really felt more like 10) on what was my “day off” for the week had eaten away at my patience.
So I had a moment, which I’m sure every parent has had. And considering the first thing I heard when I woke up that morning was my husband attempting to discipline the same four-year-old within minutes of them waking up, it was bound to happen.
It was one of those days that felt overwhelming at the time, but less than 24 hours later, I realize how trivial it all was. No one died (the cat may have lost one of its last nine lives though), and no one was sick or hurt (although the four-year-old was up through the night complaining of a tummy ache, and the seven-year-old did have to hold an ice pack to his face after the eye-gouging incident). We all survived and woke up to a much better start the next morning.
Sometimes, it takes some slow breathing, a cup of tea, and a timeout for both the four-year-old and mommy to bring things back into perspective.
