“Tomorrow is a new day.”
That’s a common expression around our house as we continue to ride the wild roller coaster that is parenting.
It’s amazing to me the highs and lows that come with raising kids. The positives far outweigh the negatives, but human nature — or at least for me — brings a certain spotlight to the unfavorable aspects, particularly if they involve major disappointments over their actions.
Beckett had a rough day recently. There was nothing major but a combination of events, such as negative comments, judgment errors and disrespectful actions, led to an early bedtime for him.
The 7-year-old knows right from wrong, but he all too frequently makes poor choices, and we are continuously pointing those out to him to the point he thinks we are being too hard on him. Maybe he’s right on occasion, but we are simply not going to accept bad behavior.
At bedtime, which he was clearly not ready for yet, he started asking me if there would be consequences for his behavior tomorrow. I told him there would not be so long as he made better decisions and corrected his negative approach to certain things. I told him, “tomorrow is a new day.”
The next morning I was up working and Beckett also beat the sunrise. He sneaked downstairs and then burst into the room with his school clothes on, saying, “It’s 6:15. Today is a new day, my choices will be better. I just know it. Can I have my Kindle back?”
It was good to see his priorities were back in order.
I have always enjoyed seeing my kids first thing in the morning.
They are so unkempt and hardly ever wake up with the same clothes they went to bed in. Beckett almost always sheds clothes throughout the night. Even if he sleeps in shorts and a T-shirt, something is always found off him and usually hurled across the room. What possesses him to wake up, take off his shirt or shorts and toss across the room asleep is a mystery to me. He doesn’t remember doing it because I always ask him and he invariably mutters something along the lines of, “hmm that’s a good question, looks like a decent throw.”
Carson also pulls some strange middle of the night antics.
Typically, Carson is the first child up in the morning and it usually goes one of a few different ways. He has been known to come downstairs by himself and immediately get engrossed in something. He also will hang in his room or on the second floor playing with toys in a loud fashion. He also many times comes in and jumps in bed with us if we are not awake.
On a recent morning, somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. Carson climbed into our bed, and most of the time we will not fight this as long as he goes right back to sleep.
On this particular morning, Carson insisted on being in between Pam and me. However, he was not content once he had managed to get sandwiched in. He started pushing at me with his arms. When I didn’t budge, he started using his feet. He wanted me gone from the king-sized bed, despite there being plenty of room for all of us.
Rather than drag him into his room and deal with the struggle that would wake every one, I decided to go for a run. He won, but in the end I was better for it.
Within days of turning 6 years old, Carson lost his first tooth.
Unfortunately, he didn’t notice when it fell out and the tooth remains missing in action. We believe it happened at school at some point, but Carson is sure it didn’t.
In fact, every time we talk about it now and ask where his first tooth could be, he points in his mouth and then turns around and points to his rear end. I think he does that because the first time he did it I found it hilarious. Now whenever the subject arises he does the same thing and we have a good laugh.
Before bed the night he lost his first tooth, Carson decided he was going to write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining how he lost it, how he was sorry and how he hoped it would be okay.
Fortunately, for him, the tooth fairy was quite understanding and visited his room that night and left a reward behind.
The next morning I was surprised that he forgot all about the tooth fairy. When I reminded him, he quickly scaled the steps and came out of his room, waving it and saying over and over again “mama,” which is still his favorite and only word to this point.
What happens next sums up our little boy’s heart. We went downstairs and he immediately climbed on the counter in search of my wallet. He found it and put the $2 bill in it for me. I refused to accept it, which infuriated him so much that I ended up just putting it back until his attention was distracted.