Tantrum of a Lifetime

On Saturday my youngest son, Dub, threw the largest tantrum of his life. And not just one of those at home tantrums that you can just lock a child in their room for a while to wait it out. Nope, a full on out in public, surrounded by people I will see every week tantrum.
This tantrum involved crying, screaming, hitting, kicking, high-pitched screeching, and many other embarrassing behaviours. The cause of all of this? I would not give him a quarter to buy yet more candy from the machine at the arena. In hindsight I'm not sure that I picked my battle appropriately, but I sure was committed to it.
I know that this was mostly just fall-out from the separation. That Dub really doesn't think that I'm the "worst Mommy ever!!!!", or wish that I would die. I'm not sure that it makes hearing these things any easier for any mother though.
So, how did I handle him? Very physically :)
He was literally thrown under my arm and carried out of the arena. Until he wiggled so much that I lost my grip on him. The I switched to cradling him in both arms, with him screaming, kicking, and hitting. I'm sure the other Lacrosse Moms think very highly of me.

Over the past couple months I have received many lessons in judgment. By that I mean, not judging others when you have no idea what their situation is. To an outsider, on Saturday my child looked like a spoiled brat, and I looked like a mother that picks her battles poorly and has no control over her children. Here is the reality. My son is 5 years old and this was the first public tantrum he has ever thrown. Our family is in the throws of the very large transition from a 2 parent household to 2 single-parent households. This was the first of "Mom's weekends", which means that this is the first time that the boys have gone more than a week without seeing Daddy. As a newly-single Mother I have the new reality of "living on a budget", this is a new concept for myself and for the boys. On Saturday all of these "realities" converged, leading to the tantrum of the century. Since it was only the second week of lacrosse, none of the parents know our "reality". I can only hope that they didn't judge too harshly.

After all of this, how did our day end? Pretty well actually. By the time we arrived home Dub had apologized. He then busied himself drawing a picture of the two of us in a heart, walking together across a bridge, over a heart river. We then went and rented a movie, ordered pizza, and cuddled up together on the couch for the rest of the day.

I love my boys, I just don't like them very much sometimes.