A reminder...

Tonight was our ward Christmas party. The excitement, the crowds of people, and the fact that Saturday puts us off of our regular routine anyway, all made this a really hard thing for Ethan to attend and still behave. He and I ended up walking home right after dinner was over. He didn't want to go, but he wouldn't follow the rules so he had to anyway, and this made him MAD. He screamed, and arched his body, refusing to walk and at one point even threw himself on the ground and threw an all out fit. None of this was making me very happy, so as you can imagine, after the walk home (only about 3/4 of a mile, but still it was cold, and snowy, and I literally had to drag him the entire way) I had just about had all I could handle. I tried to open the door only to discover that my dear husband had locked it, and the only keys were either locked inside of the house, or in my dear husband's pocket back at the church. The party was no where near over, and so I knew we would both be ice statues by the time they got home if we just waited. There was no other choice but to hike back to the church, all the while Ethan was still bawling. We got the keys and were headed home when I had had enough. I sat Ethan down on the curb and told him that we needed to talk. I was willing to let him stay if he could be good, but the choice was his either way he needed to stop crying. He decided that he didn't have it in him to obey the rules so we headed home one more time. As crying was no longer aloud (Boy I wish I had thought of that the first time around) we had plenty of time to talk. We sang Christmas carols, and talked about different things in Ethan's life. He had me laughing with the lyrics he sang to the Christmas songs. (Like, "bring me some freakin' pudding" instead of "bring us some figgy pudding", and "oh, Christmas tree Oh, Christmas tree, duh, duh-duh, duh, duh, duh-duh..." He doesn't know any of the other words, and really I don't either) When we entered our circle, and the house was in sight again we were talking about how happy we were to be home. Ethan said, "it's a good thing that we are here because I am freezing my butt off!" I said "Really, you are?" and he replied "yup, would you like a picture?" I'm not really sure what that means, but it made me laugh. We came inside and changed into our PJs and cuddled on the couch with some hot cocoa (NOT in the diet, but desperately needed) When Ethan took a drink he said "oh, mom, this is cocoa-licious!" After the cocoa, when we could feel our feet again we played Transformers, read stories, and had a really fun night. He has also started putting sound effects to our lives. Like when I made a dumb joke he said "ba-dum, bum" like drums, and when my slippers made me slide not so gracefully across the kitchen floor, eventually falling and scattering our cocoa cups all over the floor he said "wa-wa-wa, just like on tv. I love that kid! He makes me laugh so hard. I could hardly believe it when Troy got home and asked if I was still mad about Ethan's behavior. I had kind of forgotten all about that part. I guess sometimes when I feel like I have had it with him I just need to spend a little time, just the two of us, really listening and really having fun to remind me just how lucky I am.