A Fit of Screams

Don't let his adorableness fool you... or do. Because he is so dang cute

I am sure this will be said many more times throughout this next year- but Jack has hit the two's. Hard. Case in point- 

Brad finally finished putting the lights on the house. We have a house to put lights on!! I digress... the boys were still up (and being ca-ra-zy) and I thought they would love to see our house all lit up. I was right! They were in their nice fleecy jammies so it wasn't too bad for them to be outside and we admired our home. Then we really started feeling the cold and we rushed back inside. James and Gavin loved it, but resumed their playing the second we got in. Jack, on the other hand, loooooved it. So much so that he started SCREAMING at us to take him back outside. And not normal screams- these were extra special screams for this occasion. These were "you aren't letting me see my beautiful house all lit up and it's magical let me back outside NOW, dictators" screams. Normally I would try to be calm at first. Normally I would get tired of hearing him scream at me. Normally I would lose my patience and insist on him being quiet because they are Christmas lights, for Pete's sake. BUT I am trying really hard to be patient and kind and gentle (see motto post!). Instead of losing patience, I held him. I kissed his head. I stroked his hair. (I kinda laughed...). After force brushing his teeth, I sat down with him and started singing. He didn't care for it much. I even tried a new song (that I forgot most of the words to), "O Christmas Tree". He still didn't care. At some points, his brothers running around almost got his attention and distracted him. But then he remembered the serious grievance towards him and would start crying again. Then he stopped. He perked up and said, "O Kismas twee O Kismwas tee". Yup, he WAS a fan of my singing! And the new song! That was the most he was going to sing, and handed the reigns back to me so I could "sing" (I use the term loosely because I dum-dummed or hummed most of it... really can't remember the words tonight) the song at least 10 times. And totally worth it. He even recovered enough to go to the window and exclaim, "Lights! Outside! On house! LIGHTS!" Which kinda started some crying again, but much better than before. We then headed to brother's bedroom and read some books. Jack completely recovered and even helped count some dragons. 

I'm mostly writing this to remember that patience and kindness pays off. It's easy to forget that it happens. It may not be as immediate as a sharp, "Stop crying!" or an impatient, "That's enough!". But it pays off and it creates tender moments you would miss out on. This night will now be precious to me because even though he was mad, we worked through it. 

I can't wait for the screaming that will happen after we drive around to look at other Christmas lights. Maybe he'll fall asleep...