Good Choices

It has been a really long few weeks for the Van Sloun’s.  We’ve had strep throat, hives, new teeth breaking through, a fever, possible bladder infection, 3 trips to the pediatrician, one trip to the dentist, Halloween and crazy weeks at work and our college courses.  

Last night when I went to pick up my little posse, I was greeted with C in the office getting his temp taken- great, I thought, that means he’s booted tomorrow- what on earth am I going to do?  We’ll figure it out, I thought, we always do.  Then I walked in with a semi-grumpy and just feeling lousy 9 mos old (yippee- he just turned 9 mos, where did the time go?)-  I digress, I was greeted with 2 incident reports for A and O, awesome.  Turns out O had bit A during naptime.  We pack up our stuff, and I’m thinking about how to handle all of this.

We get in the car and are headed home- I look back at O (who’s 3) and asked why she bit her sister.  She gives me the half smirk I’ve seen in my photos from about her age and it makes me repress a giggle.  She’s says “Mommy, I just don’t know.”  Fair enough.  I truly think some days I would like to bite a few coworkers, and I guess at some stage (probably long after I was three), I learned that wasn’t appropriate.

Halfway home, my phone rings and it is one of A’s friend’s mom’s.  She asked if I got the report that A and her little buddies decided not to do their sports class yesterday (that we pay for) and instead sit in the sandbox.  I sighed, said I wasn’t aware (we get a stack of about 25 sheets of ‘art’ every day), but that we would talk about it and it we agreed it wasn’t their choice to make (at $12 a class…). 

We make it home, I take a deep breath, head inside and tackle it head on. 

O- no more biting or I’m taking a piece of candy each time from your bucket- “Ok mommy, I love you.  But sometimes my sister pushes my buttons.” (Sucker, she’s REALLY good at this for only being 3). 

A- you need to make good choices about participating in sports class, if you don’t want to do it anymore, fine, but we aren’t paying for you to hang in the sandbox-  “Ok”

C- and C proceeds to throw up all over me.

But thinking back on last night, I still smile a bit and realize that they we all have choices and that’s part of the fun in being a parent, sorting through those choices together.  Love them to pieces and I know every day that that is the only choice I have to make.