I could have done better

This is the face of a little boy who was in the middle of an epic 40 minute toddler tantrum, who 10 minutes before, in a crowd of people while he cried and clung to me and told me he just wanted to "snuddle me" I put him down, told him to stop crying and get walking and just let him keep whining. In that moment I was tired, frustrated, embarrassed and extremely cranky and I fully know now that what he needed from me, I just straight up didn't give him. If I'd picked him up and "snuddled" him when he needed it, and not worried about "giving in" to his bad behavior, I'm sure we would have avoided this disaster below. 

Warning: I do tell him in this video that I don't like him. I don't usually tell my kids that, however I can admit I lost my cool (all parents do it sometimes, not everyone is mature enough to admit it). Please don't judge me, and if you do then please keep it to yourself. 

You see we are cutting out his naps these days but because of a long day the day before and plans for the afternoon and evening (and my selfish desire for an hour to myself) I put him down for a nap, knowing I'd have to wake him early to go and get James from school. I figured he'd be grumpy, but I had no idea the extent of it. 

He cried/whined/screamed for 15 minutes before we went to the school, then the whole way to the school (a lady actually laughed at me from her car when she heard us coming), while at the school where he usually always runs to play, the whole way home, while we were rushing to go pee and brush our teeth, and almost the whole way to the dentist. At least 40 minutes of almost constant whining and screaming...and I sit her wondering if maybe I had just snuggled him when he needed me to that I could have stopped the tantrum long before it reached the epic proportions that it did in the video from the van. This kind of behavior is truly not normal for Jordan, and for whatever reason on this day, at this time, all he needed was his Mommy, and I just didn't show up. I absolutely know that I could have done better for him in that moment. 

The point of this post is not to beat myself up about how I didn't handle the situation right but to just remind myself to do better again the next time. Everyone has these moments/hours/days that they wish they could take back and redo and I am no different. But I am able to be honest with myself about my faults and how I wish I'd dealt with the situation better. 

I have been having some difficulties coping with some stuff and the past few weeks have been hard for me. I've struggled some times with being the kind of mom that I want to be to my boys and yesterday was no exception. But, in saying that, today, I hugged those little boys extra hard and told them both how much I loved them and to me that's what matters. It's THOSE moments they will remember, and I know that as long as there are 10x more of those moments than the bad ones I'm doing a damn good job by them and I am proud of myself. I am only human and I do the very best I can at all that I do, and I know that sometimes I do awesome, and sometimes I end the day just knowing that I could have done better...and that's okay too!