Let me try this again

Last night I was not in a mood to play around with Blogger and it's formatting issues, so I scraped all the text and just left the pictures (just for you LJ and Tiff)!

There are so many times the kids do something that make Matt and I just look at each other in disbelief (or sometimes embarassment) or say something just totally wacky, but when it comes time for me to type it out here...my mind goes blank. Matt and I really believe we have the greatest kids ever and we know how blessed we are when it comes to them. They are happy (most of the time), healthy, adventurous, funny, smart...I could go on and on.

I mentioned it a while ago, but Caedmon has hit this whinning stage and hit it HARD. It's really bad. I'm afraid to report that I completely SNAPPED yesterday. It wasn't totally his fault, it just a moment where everything that could go wrong - did.

After taking a COLD walk around Lake Lynn, we stopped for lunch and to pick up a Cookie cake for my birthday. We got home, I put Savy in the booster, Caedmon climbed in his chair and I was getting their chicken and fries out for them. Everything was going well until I handed Caedmon his drink. He must have grabbed it from the lid and BAM! His sprite (yes, my kid gets chicken tenders, fries and sprite...remember that whinning I mentioned above - it's not worth listening to over sprite IMO) was all over the floor. This caused him to freak, for me to scream "Molly" (the dog's name before I realized it was sprite and not food that spiilled on the floor), and then Murphy showed up (as in Murphy's law).

So Caedmon starts crying over his sprite, I'm yelling for Matt to either clean Caedmon up or the floor. While we're not paying any attention to Savannah or Molly, Molly snaps food out of Savannah's hand - thus snipping her fingers, causing her to cry and me to yell even louder at Molly (poor dog). So Matt's chasing the dog through the house (she knows she's in trouble) trying to get her outside; I'm trying to console Savannah who is still screaming and listen to Caedmon's whinning because he doesn't have sprite anymore and wants cookie cake NOW. And that moment comes and I just SNAP! It had been building and just exploded.

I have to say my screaming for everyone to SHUT UP (I know, I know...) didn't help matters- it just freaked the kids out even more (I never react like that, I'm always the one trying to calm Matt down). So the freak out is followed by screams and cries; meanwhile, the kitchen table is in the middle of the kitchen, sprite is still all over the floor, food is on every counter & the table, and Matt finally wrestled the dog out the door, but I'm too busy at this point taking a screaming child to his room and coming back down for the other screaming child....luckily for her she stopped crying before I could get to her. Then the door bell rings (and no it was DSS). UGH!!!

So it was bad, I over reacted, I scared and upset Caedmon and poor Savannah had no idea what was going on- she was just feeding off the tension in the room. So after a minute or so I calmed down and went upstairs to talk to Caedmon and apologize to him. We came back down and he sat on my lap while we ate lunch and shared my diet coke and cookie cake!

The good thing is they won't remember really...they move on so quickly but it's me who doesn't forget and will continue to replay the scene again over and over in my head wondering what I could have done better, how I should have handled it, knowing I caused my child a moment of panic....it's just so sad for me.

Oh well- time heals I suppose.