A Bitter Finish

As I sat in the cool pool watching the heat pelt our house I was happy.  My oldest, Drew was jumping in and swimming after his swim lesson, Sean sat on the step, splashing and enjoying himself, and lastly Eva bobbled up and down in the "boat" with me next to her.  We had all just finished cold Otter Pops and as far as perfect afternoons go this was as close as it could get...

My wife walked in the pool area and it was as if a switch was hit, Sean started an epic breakdown. As far as phases go, our current three year old terror has tried mine and Cristina's patience beyond anything I remember from Drew.  Sean can cry, scream, whine and I think scratch a chalk board all at the same time.  Unfortunately this rarely means he sleeps like a rock that night either.  As we exited the pool our house was filled with the serenade of Sean making his displeasure known...for a solid hour.  Even as I made a wonderful dinner alone (that I had hoped to do with the boys) in the kitchen, and my wife fed the kids and put them to bed, I couldn't relax.  As perfect as the afternoon was, and it was just about as smooth as one parent and 3 kids under 5 could wish for, I was wound as tight as ever and the only after taste left for the day wasn't even the wonderful Pasta, but rather an hour of screaming for my boy.

It seemed unfair to me, almost as if everything that had happened in the day was irrelevant because this happened.  As I don't know much about wine I can only imagine it would be like taking a sip, the fragrence is breath taking, the flavor perfectly balances on your pallet, but then the aftertaste peaks with an acidic punch, up till that last moment it was on the money.  This made me think even more about this, a mediocre to even bad movie can almost save it's self with a top notch ending, books the same way.  Dinner can be bombed but if you hit it out of the park with a decadent dessert you only remember the sweet, creamy ending, and the dinner can be forgiven.  I kept coming up with more and more examples of how the ending is so valued over the begginning and middle it just seemed unfair.

No matter how hard I work as a parent there are days when my kids are driving me up a wall, on my last nerve, but minutes before they sleep one of them will hug me, cuddle with me and be as perfect a child as I could hope for, and the previous day seems to melt away, unfortunately I have yet to figure out how to make the opposite not ruin my day.  

Perhaps I can figure out how to build my days into chapters, and while the every chapter can't be perfect, I can focus on a solid ending for each one, even if the whole chapter is miserable I can still knock it out of the park with a last moment of affection; And the inverse would be true as well, the moment things turn sideways I begin a new chapter and focus on turning this conflict into an opportunity to overcome and have a brilliant ending.  That could perhaps fix my quandary, if only I could figure out how to master that split second switch and starting a new chapter on the fly.