AP moment of the day ~ Respect your child's feelings.

Captain Destructo was being trouble. He'd had a long day and is weaning himself from naps. This is a good thing.... aaaand a bad thing! The good thing is he goes to bed and is sleeping by 8pm at the latest. The bad thing is he can be veeeeery tricky for the last three or four hours of the day!!! Today was one such day. He didn't wanna, wasn't gonna and I couldn't make him do very much of anything but he was pretty darned SURE he wasn't going to eat dinner. Now, I'm not the best cook, not the more creative chef, but still, it was good food, lovingly prepared and, heck, it was dinner!! (The fact that he had eaten not one but THREE bananas only an hour earlier not to mention cookies and crackers that his Daddy had been doling out with abandon was totally beside the point. ** sigh **... It shouldn't have been beside the point, but my generally cranky mood lately made the fact he was full and irrelevance. Way To Go Mom. I digress. I do that!! ) ANYWAY... he wouldn't eat his dinner and wanted, instead, to read some books and not stay at the table. I don't so much mind if kids eat, but I do like them to stay at the table with us until everyone is finished. Sooooo... I tell him that he must eat his dinner at the table or go to his room. He didn't want to eat so I told him to go to his room. Poor guy... he was heartbroken and began to cry and sat, with his back to me, sobbing in the hallway. I heard him mumble something and asked him to repeat what he had said ..... "I'm MAD at you..." he cried. I was SO proud of him for being able to recognize and state his feelings so clearly. My heart softened immediately and I went and sat by him.... "I'm mad at you too, aren't I?" I said. I told him why I was mad and we talked a little. I asked him if he would return to the table or did he want to go to bed. He said he wanted to go to bed and so I had him say Goodnight to everyone and off we went, his chubby little hand in mine, step by step up the Apples and Pears. He certainly knows how to make me run the gamut of emotions on a daily, heck, hourly basis that one!!