You Know It's a Bad Day When....

The only child who didn't cry at dinner is the 4 year old. Sarah cried the first time trying to explain why tomatoes made her mad at dinner. What I think she was trying to say was she was mad that Dad asked her to try the tomatoes. But she got stuck, dissociated, and then picked a new sad, mad, and glad for the day. Her mad then became that Simon was kicking her in the grocery store. So of course when we turned to look at him, he burst into tears. Terrified he was going to get into trouble. I mean, truly, this boy was terrified. We calmly explained that during Sad, Mad, Glad, we are only talking about feelings and that no one will get punished for someone else sharing (and in effect, tattling). Then Sarah took a bite of the mild, pickled jalapeño that she asked to try and burst into tears.

Her reason: she was scared that the jalapeño was too hot.

Full on flight or fight mode. Now, I've seen this child eat an entire bag of Hot Cheetos without so much as a sip of water. So I didn't think twice about the mild jalapeño slice. We were stunned. So after some deep breathing we began talking about big feelings. She admitted she was sad again during school and that she missed Stella. I asked her if it was only Stella. She then confided it was really her Mommy and we began the dialogue about her missed visit, Mommy getting help, and that it was ok not only miss her Mommy, but to talk about her as well. And I said a silent prayer of thanks that I had scheduled the new therapist for this week. 

Then Stella had math to be checked and was having trouble with telling time. So she had to re-do some of it. So she was crying. Her I understand. I spent most of my childhood crying over math homework....Hubby was great and walked her through it while I "supervised" Smiley's "bath by myself". Which of course ended with me rinsing her hair after she had her pjs on because she missed an entire section of shampoo. But hey- anything to build her confidence. 

And that, folks, was an hour and half of my Monday night.