Mom wanted to take Jia to a kids event downtown today. I joined her with Luk and Kai. Lots of laughs and even more disfunction. Kai can't think straight when we're with Gramma. He completely rejects me and then does everything in his power to own, control and monopolize Gramma. It's so incredibly sad and frustrating to watch. Between us we muddled through the day.
Of course he swings the needy back to me once we're on our own but it's all just a huge reminder of how far we still have to go. He clearly doesn't get the whole family forever thing. He is still working so hard to make sure the next care giver/nanny/mama is going to like him best.
When it's strangers it's easy to pull him away and carry on. Much more complicated when it's Gramma. He needs a relationship with her so we can't really pull him away.
Overall the event downtown was pretty lame but the kids were happy to hang out. They got their faces painted. We saw the Norman Foote show. There were pony rides there so they were all pretty hyped about that. I told Luk he could ride the smaller horse, Diamond. Jia was fussing big time about riding the bigger one, Feckles. So Diamond came up first and Luk had a total temper tantrum about not wanting that horse. Yeesh. So Jia got on Diamond and then to our complete surprise Kai wanted on Freckles. So Mom went with him and he was all giant smiles. I had to run after Luk who was still yelling and then tried running in the opposite direction (first time I've had a kid run away like that) luckily he's easy to catch ;) Brought him back with a stern "STAY" and ran to get pictures of Jia and Kai on the horses. Phew.
Luk was offered a chance to ride a pony but he was still mad and crying and I said "you are almost five, this is not how to get what you want". Meanwhile behind me Diamond is being held for Luk and he glared at the horse and said NO. So that was that. Hard lessons for sure. I made him tell Eric about it. He wasn't feeling so proud of himself. Eric said "sounds like you made a pretty bad choice". Luk agreed.
Just before we got to the car the kids played a silly game of catching a ping pong ball and their prize was a puffy sticker. Kai was over the top excited about that. I'm assuming he thought it was candy. He pulled it all apart in the car and it had to be tossed. Luk pulled his apart too. Then Jia very carefully got hers out of the package without wrecking it and in typical big sister style gloated like crazy that hers was ok and was on her shirt.
We finally left down town and slowed it down at the Forest Museum with a snack, train ride and play in the playground. It was really quiet, only a couple other families. Kai was willing to leave Gramma's side in order to play. He was pretty bent on the train on the way out because Gramma let Jia sit with her. He refused to sit with me or Luk. He was finally forced to sit with me and he made it pretty clear he was mad about that. He sat and glared at Gramma for the whole ride. Disconcerting for Luk and Jia, they aren't used to seeing him reject Mama quite so much or be so grumpy. It's truly amazing to watch kids wreck their own good times. Also truly amazing how quickly they move through the moods and feelings. Takes me way longer to catch up.
Thankfully it wasn't a hot day!
Ended the day with grocery shopping and prepping for Eric's 50th Birthday today. He's requested a dumpling dinner. I'm not home until 5, so it will be a late night tonight!
