Heart melted: check

These kids are really awesome. Tonight, however, they hovered between the two extremes of being super cute and behaved and crazy, loud, or screaming. At one point, Violet is crying her little eyes out in time-out (for hitting one of the cats!) and Hayden will not leave her alone, yelling “s’ok, Bobby! s’ok!” and trying to give her hugs. He does not like it one iota when she is crying and ends up getting worked up because of it.

“Bobby, time-out” Hayden informs me. I respond, “yes, Bobby is in time-out. She’ll be done soon.” He looks at me, blinks hard and says, “mommy, hug Bobby!”

Once her time-out is done, she informs me of how mean I am and that I don’t love her. This is a new thing, trying to guilt me into letting her get away with things. I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen until she was a teenager? I make sure to tell her that she cannot hit the cats, and that I love her very much. Hayden comes over and gives us both a big hug.

Since she wasn’t being a good listener tonight in general, she couldn’t watch any TV tonight. She did, however, have options: reading stories (looking at books) in her room or downstairs. She chose her room and was silent the entire time I put Hayden to bed.

Once I got to her room she let me know that she was calmed down enough to watch TV and that she “PROMISED to listen.” I stuck to my guns and we read stories. It went really well. Just before I ended up coming back downstairs she said to me, “I know you love me. Thanks for giving me hugs and kisses at night. I love you too, and I’m sorry I was mean.”

What a sweetheart.

Here’s her doing her own version of Twinkle Twinkle before bed…