Throwing in the Banana- Sometimes this Mom Just Wants to Give Up

Last week I was having a sweet, snuggly moment with l'il Chrish when suddenly my head whiplashed with pain. My eyes smarted and cheek throbbed like I had been slapped. Caleb had thrown a banana from across the room dead at me. Hard.

What child, completely unprovoked, clocks their own mother? Obviously I'm doing something totally wrong and all of this hard, painful, excruciating research and work is useless.

I could almost taste the anger in my mouth I was so blindingly enraged. Just when I was about to lose it the anger gave way a bit to weariness: weariness at trying so hard and still feeling so far away from the answers. And then, just maybe if I thought about it a certain way, under the weariness I felt a tender kind of strength. Roth (Women Food and God) may be onto something because somehow as I took a sec to feel the emotion it melted away and I was able to handle the situation with a new tack I've been working on: Be focused, firm and sharp as a tack as I 1.try to get at the "incident's" concern which was: Caleb was hungry and wanted me to open the banana for him, after which I 2.pound home the message that: It's Never OK to hit, kick, throw things, or otherwise be rude and harmful because that really, really hurt me and 3.we need to Always Use our Words. Next time say "mom, I'm hungry, can you help me with this?"

Luckily, very, very luckily, something good happened next. Head hanging, Caleb said "I'm sorry mom." My heart melted. That was the sweetest, most tender and unsolicited sorry my little son has ever said. And it all happened without shouting.

So in the end my son pounded me and I didn't even wind up punishing him; instead we hugged. Somehow, some way, I found the energy to straggle on through the moment with my 3 little steps. Some would shudder and say I'm just rewarding him. But my son is as confused as am I about why he acts this way at times; controlling himself and naming his need are learned skills. If I want him to use words instead of lashing out I need to model it for him (and see just how hard it can be)!

I hope I'm on the right track here, sometimes I don't know. There's no dress rehearsals, no second chances, no fast forwarding 10+ years to see what kind of habits my kids have. Parenting is ruthless like that. It's just one little teaching moment at a time, and my kids aren't the only students.
ps. next time I'm going to post a sample schedule. if anyone else has been trying it, please get ready to leave me some feedback! I would totally appreciate it!