Rough day for Little Bitty

Little Bitty is sleeping peacefully now, but it's been a long day.

He missed school Thursday and Friday this week with a cold, so his schedule is off. And he's tired since he hasn't slept well the last few nights. And it is definitely showing in his behavior.

I took all three boys out today while dh was working on his "man-cave" (ie. his project in the garage) with our neighbor. We only had a few stops, but I learned a long time ago that any more than one stop and you are taking your chances.

There was only one stop where the boys actually had to get out of the car, so I figured (hoped) we'd be ok. Ha!

At the first stop, I ended up having to wrestle w/ Little Bitty the whole time. He wanted to climb everything in sight and try hanging upside down - he has no sense of danger. Bearhug and Cuddlebug alternated being helpful and running around in circles (which was not-so-helpful). We were the only ones making a scene, as usual, but we made it through ok.

On the way home, I stopped at a gas station to fill up. Things were fine until I was ready to pull out and a car pulled up in front of me, blocking me. No big deal, we weren't in a hurry. But if the car stays still for too long, Bitty thinks it's time to get up and start roaming. Which he did, and threw a big fit when I told him he needed to get back in his seat and buckle up. Thank goodness for big brothers, they helped me get him buckled and we moved on.

It's not the first time he's done that, but unfortunately my little trick of hooking his seatbelt into the middle seat clip (which is also right by his seat, but backwards to him, making it harder to unhook) is no longer effective because he figured out how to do it.

Just a few minutes later, on the FREEWAY, he decided to unbuckle again. Cuddlebug was sitting next to him and tried his best to block the seatbelt and keep Bitty in his seat (because I was busy trying to drive, in the rain, in freeway traffic) but the next thing I know, Bitty is trying to climb into the front seat.

The shoulder isn't very wide and it's a very busy freeway, so instead of pulling over to the side of the road I got off at the next exit and pulled into the first parking lot I came to, holding him back w/ my arm as best as I could and yelling for his brothers to help me keep him in the backseat.

I had flashbacks to some similar trips with his brothers when they were younger. *shudders* At least this time I have my two big guys to help out, as best they can anyway. Even a little guy in the middle of a meltdown is incredibly strong, so even though they are bigger, and quite strong themselves, he can still give them a workout.

Anyway, when we stopped I found something to keep him occupied, got him buckled up AGAIN and got back on the freeway headed home. He tried to unbuckle several more times on the way home, but I had asked Cuddlebug to hold onto his seatbelt so he couldn't get it unbuckled, and for the most part that worked. There was one other time where Bitty managed to pull Cuddlebug's hand away and get unbuckled, and we had to pull over again. We eventually made it home safely.

The fits continued on and off for the rest of the day, with the final one resulting in him pulling the computer monitor (thankfully a thin, light one) down off the desk and it managed to scrape him on its way to the floor :( Poor baby.

Things should get better when he gets back into his usual routine.





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