Jan. 30: On Tuesday night I went to a great presentation at Andrew’s preschool on helping children understand and process their emotions. The speaker was great. She made me laugh a lot. Apparently effective parents do what is called “emotion coaching.” The first step is emotional awareness – that is your own emotional awareness. Therefore, I have been endeavoring to get more in touch with my own emotions. And right now, I’m cranky.
I was out last night with friends until after 11pm. When I came home, Sylvia had been up and unhappy for a bit. Bryan wasn’t in the greatest mood because of having a miserable baby, so I calmed her and we both silently went to bed. Then after doing (just) one night feeding, Sylvia woke up when my go-to-the-gym alarm rang at 5:55am. She often wakes up at 5 or 6 but goes back to sleep until 6:30 or 7am. Not today! So I didn’t go to the gym and instead got up with her. And she was mostly in a good mood, but I was so tired. And then when Andrew got up he was cough, cough, coughing up a storm. He was scheduled to celebrate his half-birthday at preschool today (this is the second re-schedule because the first two times it was scheduled school got canceled). So I spent all morning trying to decide if I should send this very coughy kid to school. And my metrics weren’t the most altruistic.
Pros of sending him to school: I made muffins for his birthday snack (again!), he’s excited about his birthday, I need some time alone today, he loves school and will be really sad if he doesn’t go, he keeps telling me how he’ll cough into his elbow so he doesn’t make other kids sick, he was coughy yesterday but didn’t seem to feel bad or have diminished energy
Cons of sending him to school: Might make other kids sick, might drive teachers crazy, might be better for him to stay indoors, keeping him home would probably be the more cautious, responsible thing to do
So I took him in, talked to his teachers, and ran home (literally) to put Sylvia down for her nap. I’m hoping that an hour of quiet will restore my equilibrium!
Update: Moments after hitting post, the phone rang. One of Andrew’s preschool teachers was on the phone to tell me that Andrew seemed really low on energy. She asked him if he wanted to go home, and he said, “yes.” So I asked my neighbor Sandi to come over and listen for Sylvia while I ran down the street to pick him up. Thank heavens that I didn’t have to wake the baby!
Right now Andrew is watching Robin Hood. And eating pretzels. And I still get to have some down time. So it’s all good:)