Last night was hard. REALLY hard. Pablo had a major meltdown, worse than I’ve seen in ages – and probably made worse by me.

He acquired some gum at a function we attended, which is generally considered illegal contraband in our household. There’s nothing grosser than finding a huge ball of gum in the bottom of a trash can, or worse, in someone’s hair! I don’t let the kids chew gum at all. But Pablo managed to get two whole pieces of Super Bubble, and I didn’t realize it until we were driving home. When I extracted him from the backseat of my vehicle, he had strings of gum running from his face to his hands to his shirt, like a crazy little gum spiderweb. I was PISSED! I managed to remove all the gum from my boy, and from the car itself, and then I threw all of it in the trash, scolding him the whole time. Pablo ran into the house SCREAMING at the top of his lungs.

I wish I could hold onto the notion that Pablo picks up on my behavior and my stress level. If I keep calm and carry on, he usually does, too. Or he recovers more quickly, anyway. I KNOW that he’s a small child, and I KNOW he’s going to get into mischief, and I KNOW that my freakout = his freakout. Still, I can’t always do the right thing. And it sucks. For him, and for us.

Pablo had to go to bed early last night and miss out on his dessert. He was super upset, and he actually walked up to me and PINCHED ME! This morning, he woke up with hurt feelings, and told me, “I was sad in my bed today.” Poor boy. How much drama and tears and wall kicking could we have dodged, had I just chilled the fuck out a little bit when I saw him covered in gum? It’s so hard sometimes!