I've done this twice before so I know that there is light at the end of the year. I know that he is learning boundaries, figuring out how the world works, learning to assert his independence, exploring how to play with his sisters and just which buttons to push that get the biggest reactions...I know all these things but it is just still so exhausting.
Today we had to go to the uniform store. I hate this experience every time because it is chaotic, always takes a long time, and my sensory sensitive kids don't like trying on a bunch of clothes. Unfortunately, we have to try them on because they have to be monogrammed. I'm trying to get better at recognizing what I can control and setting the situation up as best I can see it. The weekends are crazy at the store so I planned to go mid-week and enlist Oma's help. We'd get there at opening (10) and let Oma take over with Killian while we got the girls set and then eat lunch.
As I walked out out my bedroom to head out to the car (the kids were well prepped last night and again this morning), I heard Keeley scream because Killian had thrown a toy at her. As I comforted her, he ran away and I quickly heard Kayden screaming for me to come look. As I rounded the corner I saw that he had scribbled all over the poster of our "summer fun" and a little on the mudroom bench. I told him we can't color on that, capped the marker and put it on a shelf, and turned around to grab a towel from the laundry room to wipe off the wall. In that amount of time I heard another scream....because he was stabbing Keeley with a stick.
I picked him up and strapped him in the car seat crying and then Keeley told me I was being mean (I'm not sure what I could have done differently! If he wasn't contained, he was hurting people or damaging things.) The mom in me that is rational knew that we should have just cancelled the entire thing but I really, really wanted to get this checked off my list and was afraid that the closer we got to school, the crazier it would get at the store. So we turned on "Frozen" and headed down to the store.
We met Oma outside and went inside. Killian asked where the toys were (they used to have a train table). I looked around and said I guess they didn't have it anymore so he took off in a circle around the store, meeting me back at the start and pulling down the line guider thing. Awesome start. I had to restrain him to try on a shirt and tried to do his shoes but he kept pulling off his socks so I finally just guessed on a shoe size and sent him out with my mom. The girls and I finished our shopping and then we headed to lunch which went fairly well and then headed home.
Once home we laid down in bed and tried to nap. He was actually about to fall asleep (he's trying to give them up) when the yard crew showed up. At this point I sneaked a peak at him to see him holding his eye lids open and the turned to me and said, "It's too noisy." We stayed in bed a bit longer and then I gave up.
The afternoon went as it usually does....Killian grabbed the girls' remotes for their remote control cars and threw them across the room/he drove the cars into the girls as they rode on their scooters/he crashed their work/stamped up his arms instead of his paper...the usual.
Dinner came and we battled to keep him at the table and eat. Bedtime came and he ran away and around. I finally got him in bed, read him a book, tucked him in and went down stairs to rest. I heard quite a ruckus from his bathroom. When I went up to his room, he'd pulled out all of his books and spread them on the floor, pulled out a nighttime diaper box and set it by his door as a seat, pulled out his trash can and pulled of the lid, pulled out his toilet brush "to smell it", turned on all his light, and climbed his 5 drawer dresser to get to his nail trimmers. He was sitting on the floor trimming his nails and smiled at me when I walked in. I told him not to climb his dresser and he looked at me and said he couldn't reach the trimmers otherwise. I sighed, kissed him, and came out to tell Kelly we might have to move it out of his room after I checked on the girls.
After I snuggled with the girls, I saw Kelly removing the clothes from the dresser because Killian had climbed it while I was with the girls and he scratched his arm. We removed the dresser from the room and he cried. We removed the lamp that was on the dresser because it was now on the floor and that wasn't safe. He cried. We had to unplug his monitor. He cried. I locked his bathroom door. He cried. I put him in bed and was getting him settled and I reminded him not to jump on his bed anymore (he'd been doing that earlier) and he said "but I want a trampoline". Sigh. Three is fun.
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