Day 352 - One Last Blog in 2012

I was about to crawl into bed and say goodnight for the last time in 2012 when I realized that I hadn't blogged and I would miss my last opportunity for my year commitment to blogging. The cool thing is that God really showed me something in Jocelyn tonight that I had never quite seen in her before. We had some friends over for dinner and enjoyed dessert. Jocelyn played and had fun and of course, she didn't get to bed until close to 10 pm. All of this on top of not napping today. I knew some crying and sobbing when bed time came around was going to be inevitable. She took a bath and as I asked her to get out of the tub, she threw a fit. I explained that she would loose book privileges for the night. She didn't care. This began the worst tantrum I have ever seen from her yet. I picked her up out of the tub kicking and screaming and took her into her room. She tried hitting me multiple times. I called down to Mike after putting her on the ground and asked him to come try and calm her down before I lost my cool. He was able to talk her down a bit and asked her to apologize for trying to hit me. Then....it was....the beginning of the end....Mike picked out her least favorite pull up design for her to wear to bed. He explained to her it was because she tried to hit me that she didn't get the minnie pull up. She threw the pull up and threw herself on the floor kicking, screaming, scooting...it was actually kind of funny to watch. We proceeded to put the "pony" pull up on her while she kept peeling it off. She threw herself back a few times shocked with how hard she landed on the floor but continued this tantrum for at least 5 minutes more. And then all of a sudden, she took a breath and ran over to me collapsing in my arms. She asked me to hold her as she shivered from the cold air against her bare skin. She noticed she had gotten a booger on my shirt and ran to the bathroom to clean it off of me and then collapsed again into my arms. She begged me to lay with her. No mention of the pull up at all by this time. In fact, I don' t know if she even realized what she was still upset about. We put her jammies on and said her prayers. I climbed into bed with her and lay down until she said she was ready to sleep and asked me to leave. In a matter of 20 minutes, I saw a stubborn 2 year old go from spawn of the devil to almost angelic. I don't think I have ever quite seen her so deflated. As I reflected on this while we waited to toast our 10 pm (east coast 12 am) NYE, I thought about myself in this state. Jocelyn tries so hard to show she has control and she is in charge that when there is nothing she can do, she releases every emotion possible in her tiny body to the point of exhaustion. I do the same thing. I go about my every day thinking most of the time that I need to be in control of things, I need to have it all together, I need to run this rat race on Earth....that when I am thrown something that I cannot control, I lose it. I kick, scream and cry until I can do nothing but collapse into my Father's arms. And when I am in His arms, I feel like a tiny child just wanting to be held. I don't want to make any more decisions or figure out what to do next. I just want to sit with Him and cry. I think this is how my sweet little monster felt at that moment. And as her mama, nothing could have made my heart swell bigger than to hold her close and allow her to just be. And on that note, that was the last tantrum of 2012! Happy New Year and here's to  all of the future tantrums in 2013 :)

Love,
Jenna

He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler” (Psalm 91:4).