Daily Nonsense

Yesterday afternoon, I had thought we would just stick around the house since everyone was pretty snotty and coughing. But then Parker asked to go to the park. So after a lot of crying (about whatever) and getting dressed, we were off. After an hour or so there, it was time to leave. This particular park is right off a very busy, very fast moving street. (One time, we saw another friend's kid ride his tricycle down the walkway into the street. Scary!) So as we were walking down, I asked the kids to walk slowly. Elizabeth took this to mean run fast. Miranda took Elizabeth running to mean run with her. I stopped and told them to freeze and then come back to me so we could walk slowly down. After thinking about this for a few minutes, they returned. We all started walking slowly, but soon enough Elizabeth and then Miranda were running. I yelled. They stopped. Returned. Started again. We went through this a few times before they got it (or before they decided to just walk slowly). Just at that time, Parker, who had been getting water and walking slowly, started to run. He runs in these little circles. I started to tell him to slow down to just walk to stop running. While I was saying these things, he fell. Scraped his arm up pretty bad and scared the crap out of himself.

This little story, which took no more than 7 minutes total, is a good example of the struggle I continue to have with these kids. As I was telling them to slow down, I felt bad that I was "restricting" them or trying to control them unnecessarily (I mean, they probably weren't going to just run into the street as they have never done that before). But as my daily goal continues to be "to avoid the emergency room", I kept at it, feeling guilty the whole time. Then Parker gets hurt and instead of feeling bad for him and being sympathetic, I just got annoyed and my inner voice said, "I told you so." Like Parker gives a crap about my inner voice. Sure, I was right, but who really cares?

I have no idea what the "fix" is for this kind of thing. I could have held their hands as we walked down, but then other issues would have popped up like Elizabeth's nursemaid's elbow or who got to be in front and who in back (two have to hold one hand). Perhaps the fix was staying home, which is what I wanted to do to begin with.

Ah, sigh.