That’s my boy!

I know I had it coming. For about a week long, our trip has been amazing, and the the kiddos behaved like two little angels. Last night, the huge amount of impulses landed in those little brains over the course of the past week, simply had become too much for our son Rafa. We already noticed it yesterday. He was grumpy, especially at the end of the day. Last night he slept poorly. He must have woken me up at least ten to fifteen times. Sometimes crying. Sometimes simply trying to dig a tunnel underneath me. The high-roof bed was too small for two last night. Temperatures were chilly, too, here in southern Krk. That didn’t help. This night, the heater will be on!

Today, Rafa was absolutely insane. He couldn’t help any of it, of course. He just needed to sleep, but as it goes with kids of his age, they don’t listen to reason. In fact, he did everything he could NOT to fall asleep. A walk in the stroller becomes a walk in the mobile climbing rack, or whatever he thinks his stroller is.

Or worse, the discussions:

“I want to walk.”

You let him walk.

“I don’t want to walk.”

You try to put him back in the stroller. Hehe. What were you thinking…? Nope.

“I want to push the stroller.”

“Carry me.”

“Let me walk.”

“In the stroller.”

You get the point – I’ll spare you the long back and forth we had about whether, when, and what he should eat.

At the end of the day I was happy to be back at the van and read him a book. For the 7th time today. He was quiet and – temporarily – happy. We figured Heike could do a quick round of grocery shopping, while I kept entertaining him.

It worked until we finished the book.

Holy shit.

The tantrums that followed even made me believe I was doing him wrong. I can only guess what the people on the neighboring pitch were thinking about my parenting. Of course it’s normal to scream and shout without holding back for fifteen minutes, because you want to be in the supermarket with mommy. But other people don’t know that… Or do they?

After dinner (or well… after running around the table jumping up and down), he finally admitted. He was tired. It still took a bit of negotiating to get him to bed, but once he was there, he was asleep in less than a minute. Let’s hope he’ll feel better tomorrow. We want to go on a hike!