A bad mama day

Why when, surely, I love him the most, I'm the one he seems to push away. 

I'm feeling hurt today because the wee man keeps swatting at me. Sometimes he does it almost playfully, awaiting a reaction but other times he seems straight up mad. I'm almost scared to do something that might upset him, like take something away he shouldn't have, because he might get angry and hit me.

His hits don't physically hurt, but they seriously hurt my feelings.

When I picked him up at daycare today, he leaned in for a kiss and then "Psych!", he hit me instead.  We hung out for awhile so that he could hop on one of those riding toys before we left, and when I was ready to get home and took him off, he had a no-sound-coming-out cry and all I could think was, please don't hit me, please don't hit me. I'm sorry.

He literally hits only me.

I feel like he's slipping away, as though I'm kind of losing my hold on him as I come across situations that I don't know how to handle, like the hitting and like discipline; which I'm going to need to grow a thick skin to stand strong against that pouting quivering bottom lip.

This would be a bad mama day. Mommyhood will bring a million more of these in my lifetime as I face obstacles and my child "experiments" with the things that naturally, and maybe not so naturally, go along with growing up.

10.1.13