One of THOSE days...Part II

In the last post I talked about a day I had a couple weeks ago where Luke had a string of mischievousness, one thing after the next. I was exhausted, Luke was exhausted, the day had been tough for the both of us. Continuing on with that afternoon...

After lunch I put Halle down for her nap I had a boost of energy. Things were looking up. Luke just needed some one-on-one time with me, I thought. Some special mommy time would help him get out of his funk.

I'd had my cute/creative friend Tamara's blog in my mind for awhile...a post about a fun craft she did with her little girl where you make trees out of construction paper and cut leaves out of felt to glue on. Check out the post here.

This would be perfect! I thought. A fun, calm activity for us to do together.

I had didn't have any felt, but I had lots of construction paper, so I figured I could make it work.
"Do you want to make a tree with pretty leaves?" I asked Luke.

"No!" He replied.

"It will be fun!" I kept saying as I was getting the supplies out.

I knew once he caught onto what I was doing he would get into it.

Determined, I sat down and began cutting out a tree trunk.

"Nooooooo!" He kept saying. "No, no, no, no...."

But I knew once he caught on he would like it.

This is what moms do, I kept thinking. We do fun crafts with our kids and they turn out adorable and we hang them up on our fridge or bulletin boards to admire.

So I kept going at it with the scissors and Luke kept yelling at me to stop, but I ignored him knowing that once he saw how fun it was he'd want to join in.

I finished his tree trunk and handed it to him across the table, but before I could even start explaining to him how to glue on the branches he was tearing the trunk and the paper apart!

"That wasn't very nice," I said in my calm, Love and Logic parenting voice that I learned I should use when I read the book, but have found is very hard to use when you're a little ticked.

"Don't want to!" He said with an onery face.

"Okay, then mommy will make one all by myself. You don't have to if you don't want to." Reverse psychology will work, I thought.

So started cutting out my tree, but didn't get far before he climbed up off of his chair onto the table and grabbed the paper and tree I was in the process of gluing out of my hands and started ripping it into pieces!

At first, I have to say, I was a little shocked. But the shock quickly went away and I remember thinking, "on a day like this, why should this surprise me?"

Then, I started laughing. Hard. Then he started laughing. After a minute of this I told him to hold still while I ran and got my camera.

And then I took this picture...

I just kept thinking of the picture from Tamara's blog in my mind of her beautiful little trees versus my little boy tearing mine to shreds, and I couldn't stop cracking up about it.

So I left the mess, and Luke and I sat down on the couch and watched Thomas the Tank Engine together. Sometimes, after a hard day, the best cure is a cuddle.

p.s. Just for the record, a few days later I attempted the tree making again and it worked out wonderfully. In fact, we have made two more since I took this picture. Luke loves it. Now everyday when Halle goes down for a nap he wants to make a tree. Thanks Tam for the cute idea!