ouch

The last time my throat had a lump in it like this, it turned out to be cancer. Tonight, it's just me feeling miserable.

DS2 had a bad day, and threw the biggest fit ever at Border's. We went to the movies, then to Trader Joe's, a bit of home! and continued that with a trip to Border's for a snack. I ended up carrying him out of the building while he screamed and shouted at the top of his lungs, which he continued for at least a half-hour on the drive back from Hyannis.

Once he shut up, it was as if someone flipped a switch -- he was fine. Unfortunately it's not that easy for me, I'm still reeling from last night's debacle and trying to get over it.

I couldn't let that kind of horrid behavior pass unremarked, though, and so I asked for an apology, and got the most insincere "Sorry!" ever. We talked about ways to make someone feel better after you've hurt them, and came up with three things -- saying "sorry", a hug, and saying you know you did a bad thing and you won't do it again, that you've learned from your mistake.

Since he has been lying lately, I told him I need all three of these things to believe him. It would take him about 10 seconds to accomplish that; do you think he has? I was about an inch away from him, and all he had to do was pick up his arms but he wouldn't do it. He says it won't work, I told him the best thing about giving a hug is that he'll get one back, and that it would certainly work... nope.

He's six years old, and he's stubborn, and of course self-control takes practice. We've made some progress in that he finally admitted that his behavior was his own fault, and not mine or anyone else's -- Hallelujah! I'm sure he has convinced himself that I'll forget about this eventually, because he is adept at doing just that, having "forgotten" all about it twice already in the space of a couple of hours. Perhaps I will -- perhaps I will have to, because even when I asked him if he wanted to go to sleep without apologizing to me, he was still fine with that: "Won't work," he said yet again, calling me a liar, yet again.

It's stupid, but it hurts.