Tired and wild

The boy was tired. That explains it all. He should have been napping and instead I dragged him off to Jo Jingles and expected him to wait for his sleep. That's why he decided to repeatedly go and rattle the door handle even though I asked him not to in case someone opened the door into him. That's why he ran around at full speed and fell flat on his face. That's why he was the one child peering under the table cloth for goodies, such as the balloon intended for a birthday girl, and reaching on top of the table for anything he could get hold of. The one child doing his own thing instead of joining in, although he often does anyway.

That's why I picked him up to try to calm him down and have a little chat with him, particularly about the door. And that's why he was shaking his head about in a crazy fashion. And that's why he headbutted me in the nose. Really hard. Ouch.

My self critic briefly kicked in, telling me that other people might be disapproving of the fact that my child was running around like a loon while all the others were sitting still and listening and joining in. Maybe I should have been attempting to deal with this delinquent behaviour. Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to go to toddler groups where my child can be a bad influence on other little people. Maybe I've created this monstrous child by failing to be authoritarian enough.

But I say briefly because this, of course, is nonsense. He just needed a sleep, having been up early and also having had less sleep than usual at daddy's over the weekend due to the excitement of those grandparents returning from a long trip away. And the critic was purely internal. And the boy is charming and adorable even when he is ignoring my every word.