Week 7.
A friend of mine sent me this image this week and it made me laugh out loud at how funny and true it is for what we are all going through (read the title of each book in a row)! Oh the things we can learn from books. ha ha.
This week I learned a lesson from doing a bit more reading between the lines. See, I have this glorious 5 year old who loves to communicate his needs in quite funny ways. He has these lines (who knows where he learned them) like, "I don't know if you know, but it's dinner time and I'm starving" or "listen here, fella, you look like you need a hug." He's constantly cracking me up.
He also LOVES to throw tantrums. And not the typical kind where he throws himself on the ground if he doesn't get his way, but when you give him any kind of feedback, like, "hey bud, that hurt when you stepped on my toe" it's as if his whole world ends and he runs away yelling things like "our family would be better off" without him.
What is it about 5 year olds that serve as our metaphor for adulthood? I keep noticing 2 things about myself as I watch my little guy. Number one: feedback is hard for all of us to receive and number two: sometimes I just want to throw a tantrum too.
I was doing pretty great with the quarantine up until this week. Something kind of snapped for me where I was just getting sick of never having one second alone and everyone in my household having so many needs. So many...
5 year olds can stomp their feet and cry and scream and run away and everyone in the room can recognize that that person needs a time out to reboot. We get it. We've all been there. But as adults, we are not allowed to stomp our feet or scream and cry or run away without getting a call from Child Protective Services. And here's me right now wanting to yell, "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!"
It's NOT fair.
A tantrum from a child is their way of broadcasting to the rest of us that they need connection. Once we know that, it's so much easier to help them back from the ledge. But we don't have as much permission as adults to demand the same thing.
And this week, I needed to throw a tantrum. I needed a break. I needed to scream and cry and wanted to run away, but just for a few minutes. Sadly, I didn't ask for that in my adult voice, but my overwhelmed inner 5 year old was going to have her tantrum. And while that was kind of ugly to see come out all over the kitchen, my real life 5 year old boy came up to me and said, "hey fella, I think you might need a hug." And he was right.
So this week, it's ok to throw your tantrum (if you need to), or ask for a hug or connection from someone even if it's via Zoom. Our ability to read between the lines of what is actually going on with ourselves can serve as our greatest gift...and can save us from ending up on the news. :)
You've got this.
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