Baby Mine

Tonight when I got home from work, I went upstairs to say goodnight to the boys. Tanner asked me to sing a song to him in the rocking chair. He does this once in a while and loves when I sing Baby Mine. As tired as I felt and as much as I just wanted to park myself on the couch and watch some TV....I've learned to take advantage of these requests as they will not be around forever. So I rocked him and sang. My little boy. My baby. My gift.

Tony has had a bad time lately with hitting. Whenever the urge 'hits' him, which is often lately, he hauls off and punches the nearest brother. Today it happened a few times before I went to work and then again 4 more times with Jason while I was away. Jay sent him to bed early and had a talk with him when the others went up to bed. I went in Trae's room to say goodnight, I gave the 3 oldest a hug and kiss and noticed Tony laying with his back to me on the bed. I crawled in front of him and layed down.
"how was your night?" I asked
"not good" he whispered
"why not, what did you do?"
"I hit my brothers"
"how many times?"
holding up his fingers "four"
"are you supposed to hurt your brothers"
with his chin starting to quiver and hardly able to talk "no"
"Tony, you can't do that. YOu have to be nice to your brothers. Do you want them to start hitting you back?"
"no...that's what daddy said, that they can hit me back hard"
At this point he's crying such a hurt cry and looks so sad.
"Tony, you know not to hit. Are you a naughty boy?"
"yes"
"no, you're not a naughty boy...you're a nice boy, a good boy"
"no I'm not" sniff...sniff (me)
"yes, you are. You're a nice boy. I don't have naughty boys. You just have to try a little harder, okay. Let's have a better day tomorrow, k?"
"okay" reaches in to hug me.
I love him so much. Boy, that kid can be such a stinker. But he's a good boy. hmm....
Would a good boy shut his baby brother in the van in the garage? After realizing that it had been about 15 minutes since I had seen Tanner and all the other boys were right in front of me, I started asking "where's Tanner" No one knew. "Tanner!"
"Tanner!" No answer....all of a sudden Trae says..I think I hear him in the car. Sure enough, I open the garage door and look out at the van. There he is standing on the other side of the glass, crying. I quickly open the door and he's crying that sort of cry where you know its been going on for a long time. Snot all over his face, cheeks and neck soaked with tears and the heaving breathing that tells me this didn't JUST happen. I start to blame Timmy since he had gone into the van to get something not too long before....and before he could say It wasn't me....Tanner says, between his sniffles "Tony did it" HUH? "Tony, did you lock your brother in the van?" Head hung down...."yah"
Oh my Lord in heaven, what am I going to do with this child. I wonder how long he would have let him sit out there before finally snapping and telling someone what he had done. Thank God it wasn't July...or January for that matter.
I was layed up for a better part of the day with a killer toothache. It's so frustrating because I don't have an end date in sight. If I knew I had an appt. to fix the problem I could bare it, but with not enough funds to do all that needs to be done, I just sit and wait. Because of this, I relied on the boys to be good on their own. I made a deal with Tyler to watch them downstairs for a little bit this afternoon so I could lay down on the couch. I told him I'd give him a couple dollars...which I didn't do yet, come to think about it....he made it about an hour before total meltdown. He came up practically pulling his hair out at the actions of Tony and Trae. Made me sad to think I'm a lot further away from having a live-in babysitter than I had recently thought. LOL Okay, so it was more than that. He's so responsible, but those 2 were taking total advantage of him and got some time in their room for it and some chores around the house. Sometimes I worry that he gets too much put on him as the oldest. He def. plays the part well, sometimes shadowing me as mother (which I've tried to put the cabbash on). He's a good kid though. I love him so much. He's almost as tall as I am...wonder how long before he uses my head as an elbow rest.

I almost forgot! Lori told me yesterday that she has been invited to a Q&A evening and a training session with Nathaniel Hawkins, the stylist on Project Runway. She is allowed to take one guest and guesss who she chose? ME! I'm so stoked! This will be not only great training, but a super marketing tool when getting clients. I think it is a primarily updo/wedding training. This will be AWESOME!

Lighthearted moment of the day.....When I finished singing Baby Mine to Tanner, he requested I sing the Superman song. Not knowing that particular tune, I asked him if he'd settle for Proud to be an American...he did.