I have been spending some one-on-one time with my 4 year old son after daycare since his older sister wants to stay a bit longer. I recently brought him to Target to get a 9V battery so we could drive his remote control car around that he got from his birthday. I didn’t mind running an errand with him because when the kids are split up, they are surprisingly much calmer than when they are together. Also, I didn’t realize the price of 9V batteries skyrocketed, but that’s for another day.

When we were walking in to Target, my son asked me why I wasn’t angry. It made me pause a bit because I didn’t know where the question was coming from. I asked him why he was asking that and he said he was just wondering. After I told him that I was happy to spend some quality time with him, he chimed in that he was also thinking I was not angry because he had been listening to me right after I picked him up from daycare. That is also true, but less of a factor since I was looking forward to the Target pit stop before we went home and played with his remote control car. We grabbed the battery and some other things before heading home to play for the afternoon.

The question also got my brain thinking about why else my son would ask me that question. I feel like kids are more in-tune with what is actually going even if we think they don’t know (or won’t remember). Part of me knows that returning to work is a drag on my patience because work is a new thing to deal with as I transition to working weekdays again. It’s hard to keep everything together and have the same energy. I do have to try my best to be more patient with the kids when we are running late or they are choosing to not listen. I’ve been trying to internalize the improvement I need to make and have been trying to take deeper breaths when triggered. Let’s just say I have been taking a lot of deep breaths and hopefully my kids will get more patience from me going forward!