Today...

Started out great...I finished my book...love finishing books! Even when I love the book and don't really want it to end, it is that little feeling of accomplishment I like. Easy read, but still nice to just finish it and start back into my habit of reading before bed again. I need those habits back in my life. I finished Brandon's TPS (test pilot school) scrapbook. Yippee!!! I swore when he finished that year, which was two years ago last month...I would go ahead and make a scrapbook. I never did. So, now I can say I did and it turned out pretty well. He flew a ton of planes that year and it was nice to have them all on pages, labeled and of course looking cute too! I doubt some of the cute embelishments I chose would have been his top picks, but you have to have cute sometimes too! Glad to have done that for him and have a place where he can look back on that experience fondly. The kids will enjoy it one day too I hope.
My day with the kids was pretty uneventful. Pretty much if we don't have to go out, we don't most days. So Zach and I did finger painting this AM...he loved it. We had breakfast, standard pancakes...he was good most of the day, but seriously I could tell he was bored and as the day went on he made it clear with comments...I want to go to speech school....I want to fly airplane to see Nowie and Grandpa....Can I go play with Jacob...it was sad, but we hung in there. We got to enjoy an afternoon storm. Short, but a treat here and stayed out to watch it and got a few drops on us. Then I made dinner and the switched turned. Zach has these awful tantrums sometimes. It is like he just loses control and isn't there anymore. You can't get through, you can't calm him down...it is not good. They aren't often, but they happen enough that they are an issue. Today was long with him...just different behavior that was getting to me, I had to redirect him a lot, he started something and then walked away...So tonight was not easy. He flipped out about his dinner, wanted to go to bed...always giving excuses to get out of things. For me it is so hard...I know that I don't handle it well, but I continue to handle it the same bad way each time. I get so mad at myself after, but in the moment I never see that I am not helping, but making it worse. I push his buttons, he pushes mine and we just set each other off. So many people think that Zach looks like me and Erin looks like Brandon and that is partly true...but personalities...not the same. Zach is stubborn, like Brandon and myself, but he has more of his dad in him in a lot of ways...mainly the ones that make me so darn mad!!! Anyhow. It is so hard for me right now with him...I used to be the one person that always could get to him, calm him, help him, understand him. I was that person that was who he needed and wanted and now I feel like I make so much worse. I see behaviors forming in him that I either directly or indirectly caused and that kills me. I just hate ending our day like this...it makes me sad! I know that it is one day and we have a lot of good ones here too...we just really need to get a handle on his behavior right now. I think I need super nanny!
I am hopeful tomorrow will be better and I can learn from each day and be a better mom than I am...he deserves that!