Now He Is Six...

I'm feeling really guilty right now. Today is Isaac's birthday and I just yelled at him and made him go to bed.

It started off to be an excellent day. We got to school on time, I managed to haul in my own heavy bags, Isaac's backpack and lunch, and a nice chocolate cake (and paper plates, forks, sprinkles, etc.) for Isaac's class. I went to work and got stuff done. I got through another coalition meeting (one of the most important aspects of my job) without any major snaffoos. I went to Isaac's classroom to help pass out cake. Went back to my office and worked some more on a grant application that I need to submit tomorrow, and realized it needs a lot more work. After school Isaac and I went to visit my grandparents, then went to visit my parents, then rented some movies from the library (preparing for possible snow day tomorrow), then came home.

I somehow managed to make a delicious noodle/asparagus salad and then collapsed in the easy chair.

But was my day over? Nooooooo. I had promised Isaac to help him work on his K'nex Dinosaur Set that his grandma got him for his birthday. It's for ages 8 and up. Isaac is six. That means he jumped around and scattered the tiny pieces while I squinted and hunched over the bad directions. Occasionally he would stand in front of the meager light source in the room. There were frequent requests for status reports, "How much LONGER mom?"

I finally finished it. He looked at it and put it on the shelf. Yay.

Then I got up (slowly, because I was totally hunched over that stupid project for over an hour) and realized the dishes were not done, the food was still on the table, the garbage has not been taken to the curb, the laundry is crumpled in the basket. It was too much. I cracked.

I loudly and angrily said, "Isaac, I can't do anything else for you tonight - go to bed NOW!" And Isaac looked at me with his round baby face that won't be round or babyish for much longer and said, "I love you, mom. Thanks for putting my dinosaur together."

I hope he doesn't remember these random outbursts of anger, and instead recalls how I laboriously put that frickin' dinosaur together for him, even though it was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. It sucks that it's so much easier to remember bad things than good.

Parenting is really really hard.