Live, laugh, love...Loprinzi

This morning I struggled.

The kiddos and I have been sick here.  Flu sick.  Not stomach flu, but the cough so hard you vomit, high fever, body aches, go through a box of kleenex in a couple hours sort of flu.  It has been tiring, and I am ready for it to pass.

I woke R up for school, and it was war.  Seriously.

Problem #1.  There weren't any poppy seed muffins.  My 7 year old is a little mister of routine.  He'll be one of those gray haired old guys who is at McD's at 7am every day for a sausage McMuffin and a senior coffee.  Every single morning before school he has his routine.  When it is thrown off, well it is disaster.  He fussed his way through breakfast, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, hating the world even more with each bite.  Problem #2 he didn't want to go to school.

He has never blown a fit prior to school.  This morning...terrible. 

"I hate school, I'm not going, you can't make me!"

I tried to validate his feelings that it is okay not to like something, but just because you don't want to do something, sometimes you HAVE to do it.  I told him I hated going to school/work too and would prefer to always stay home with him, but I just have to do these things even though I didn't want to...it fell on deaf ears.

After putting his shoes, hat and coat on him (yes, I had to do this, remember he wasn't going to school and I couldn't make him), I took him to the bus stop.  His vocal hatred of school continued the 5 min walk to the bus stop.  I kissed him goodbye, told him I loved him very much and would see him after school. We normally wave to each other as the bus passes by our house, today his sad face just stared back at me.

My heart sunk.

Parenting is tough business.  It is a daily struggle of finding that perfect balance of when to push them a little harder, and when to let them off the hook.  I always want to do right by them.  Always.  This morning, it felt like a mama fail moment.  I hate that.

So I emailed his teacher and asked her to call me if he seems sick and needs to come home because of being sick.  I just don't want him to think he can get away with missing school because he acts out.

I think the underlying issue is...he just misses his mama.  Truth be told, I miss him more, and would keep him home every single day if that was in our cards.  But it isn't, and so we do the best we can, with what we have.  And when we don't do our best, we try again to make tomorrow better.

In an attempt to make tomorrow better, I am dragging my sick self to Costco today (along with two sick preschoolers)...to buy those darn poppyseed muffins (yes, I can make them just the same, but NO "they are not the big ones" and the little ones I make "taste differently than the big ones Costco makes").  So I choose my battles, and tomorrow I choose to have breakfast for the little mister of routine in this house ready.  Prepared to have one less battle to fight.

Tomorrow.  It will be better.