She is still small

We are smack-dab in the middle of a 3 day weekend and I am LOVING it!

So far we have had dinner with friends. Gone to a local craft fair. And spent the afternoon at the pool with some friends.

But the weekend did not start out that nicely.

Thursday was a rough day. We are very blessed to have a 2.5 year old that can speak very well. She is very verbal, and has been since she was 6.5 months. (No lie, she said "Dada" at 6.5 months. By Christmas she was saying "uh oh" and "thank you!" and it has been a big snowball since then.) She can speak in full sentences and knows what she wants, most of the time. Even with all of that, she is still only 2 and has little life experience to tell her what things are and how they work. So she gets frustrated with things, and me, when something doesn't go her way and she doesn't know how to express it. Thursday and Friday were 2 full days of this. Thursday was bad. Our day started with a 6:30 am wake-up call. That followed into a tantrum at Wal-Mart while trying to grocery shop. Eventually I just gave her my phone to play games on and to keep her quite and in the cart. Which this left me without my calculator so I was having to add things by hand, and I am NOT good at math! She proceeded to not want to eat lunch and continued to throw fits for the rest of the afternoon and only napped for an hour and a half (which she is normally a 2+ napper). To top the afternoon off, the Hubs texted me to let me know they did another round of layoffs at his job and he narrowly escaped the ax this time. There were 2 engineers in his department, now there is just 1... him! So to add to my frustration of the tantrums, there is now all this fear about if he is next. That night, the Hubs had to head up to Georgia Tech for a class and that left me to put Little's down by myself. It took her an hour and a half, 2 trips into her room, 1 trip to the potty and me staying in there for 20 minutes until she finally calmed down and went to sleep. Friday didn't start much better with a 7 am wake-up call. We had some more errands to run, but wasn't able to do them because the car wouldn't start. Friday afternoon continued the same way as Thursday with the tantrums and short nap. When our friends called us to come over for dinner that night, I was happy to accept! It was a chance to get out of the house and let Little's go play with some friends. This was exactly what we needed. Little's was able to run around and be loud and rambunctious with her friend and get some of that pent up energy out. I was able to sit and have an adult conversation with a good friend that is going through the same stage we are in. And our Hubs were able to talk about their up coming mission trip back to Nepal.

I bring all of this up because although our child is very bright, she is still very little. She still gets frustrated with me, with Daddy, with the dog, with her toys, her food, the TV and the radio when all these things don't do what she wants when she wants it. It is easy for me to get frustrated with her, because all I want to do is tell her "Life doesn't work this way! Things and people don't do what you want them to do when you wanted them to do them!" But I have to stop and remind myself she is still small, she doesn't know. It is my job to teach her. It is my job to teach her how to react when things don't go her way. It is my job to teach her how to respond to others that may do things differently. It is my job to show her kindness and patients when she gets frustrated, instead of getting frustrated with her. I am human too, I get upset and hurt and frustrated just as easily as she does. She probably gets it from me anyways. And when I do get mad with her for no reason, I need to remember to go back and apologize and ask her for forgiveness. It may seem silly to some, to see a grown woman asking her 2 year for forgiveness, but if she see's that even Mommy needs it, it will be easier for her to give it to others and ask for it herself later.

With that.... my parents should be here in just a few minutes for dinner.

And on a side note.... She has been asleep for almost 4 hours for her nap today! I need to go wake her up!

So go have fun for the rest of the long weekend! Summer is almost up and Fall is on it's way! 

~Have a great Labor Day!~