Cold and cranky

Today was a challenge. It is 8pm on a Friday and I will probably turn in for the night as soon as I post this.

We had one of those mornings around here. The 3 year old woke up all sunshine and rainbows, but turned into a walking mass of tears and whines and exhausting behavior about three hours later. Why? Only the universe knows. We were headed out the door to meet our neighbor buddies at another new park that I had seen last week. It had an awesome looking playground and a walking path around the park where I was planning to get in a little exercise pushing the stroller. We arrived at the park in good spirits, but as soon as I opened the doors of the minivan, that u-g-l-y switch flipped in Emma's head and she freaked out. It started with, "I DON'T WANNA WEAR MY JACKET!" Escalated to "IT'S FREEZING OUT! I DON'T WANNA PLAY HERE!" and ended with her screaming as though she was being beaten, "I WANNA GO HOME! I WANNA GO HOME! I WANNA LAY IN MY BED WITH MY DEEIT!" Because she was so inconsolable, Benny got sad and he started crying. I gave up after about 7 minutes of convincing her that Henry was going to be here any minute now - she simply did not want to be at that park and she wasn't afraid to voice that opinion to everyone within earshot.

All the screaming exhausted me so we simply went home and spent the morning reading books.

If both kids hadn't behaved so well last week in the dreary cold every day we were out, I would have blamed it on the cold and windy weather this morning. The only difference was the sun was shining today - I think that threw Emma off. The sun should equal warmth to her! I spent a great deal of time this afternoon explaining to her that the warm sunshine was going to go away for a while and that the cold sunshine was here to stay. She asked me if it was going to get "more colder" when the snow came and I told her, "Yes, it would." I watched her freckled nose crinkle as she contemplated this new information, not sure if her excitement for the snow was going to help her through the frigid days...

Fingers crossed it was just one of those days.

(P.S.) Daddy took the best video of Ben laughing at himself going down the slide from yesterday's post. He must have watched the clip at least 15 times, cracking up at himself sliding and falling every time. Our son has the most infectious laugh - he made the morning go far far away. I will post this new video as soon as I upload it.