Oh my.

Um, so I should have knocked on wood as I typed my last post. A lot of wood. Like a whole forest.

Because no sooner did my fingers leave the keyboard than Jesse has a doozie of a tantrum. In fact, I'm quite certain it's topped the Hick's family list of all-time worst moments.

The scene of the incident occurred while we were picking Joel up from preschool. Jesse decided halfway from the parking lot to the building that his legs didn't work anymore and he flopped onto the group like an al dente spaghetti noodle. Only too bad for him, because it didn't leave a nice taste in my mouth. He insisted that he just couldn't walk and I MUST carry him immediately.

Since it was such a balmy 76 degrees outside I had decided to just pop Brody out of his infant car seat (because with him in it, the whole thing has to weigh 58 pounds) and just carry him to school, thus leaving my arms already occupied. In a feat of superhuman strength (or mostly desperation) I have often carried Joel and Jesse together, which total quite the poundage also--it definitely exceeds 58 pounds. But I can't carry another small child along with Brody because his body is still too floppy and he needs the full attention of both of my arms.

Anyhoo...I left Jesse sprawled on the concrete for a few minutes, but then we were getting late, so I somehow cajoled his crying self over to Joel's classroom, where he again proceeded to sprawl in the hallway, blocking all of the nearby kindergartners who were innocently trying to get to recess. The nerve! At this point, he was accompanying the sprawl with a constant moan.

One of the moms sympathetically said to me, "Oh, poor guy, maybe he's not feeling well." What I wanted to say in response (but didn't) was that even if he IS feeling well now, he won't be in a few minutes if we ever actually make it back to the car.

Joel's preschool aide kindly hauled Jesse to the door for me--she even got a quick giggle out of him--but then it was back to business (for him and her). Now he is screaming and crying and trying to sprawl again, except that I have grabbed his hand and so he can't get all of the way down to the ground. I half dragged him out of the building (hoping I didn't dislocate his shoulder...that would have made me feel kinda bad even though he WAS behaving like Frankenstein). Finally he was able to put a little weight on his noodle legs and we dragged/walked to the car, with him screaming all the way.

But, oh no, the story doesn't end there.

I ask him to please get into his car seat and he proceeds to scream NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! about 8 times in a row. So I calmly climb into the back of the car and give him a spanking. This must have been some sort of personal challenge to him because that "no" multiplied in volume and intensity threefold. I drove the .2 of mile distance home (praise the Lord we live close) and commanded him out of the car.

Repeat previous paragraph.

So I lift him out of the car, explaining what his next punishment will be, and he slaps me on the face with each of his angry little hands. He would have continued but I quickly restrained all four limbs, and in a moment of great sanctification (again, praise the Lord) simply marched up to his crib, dropped him in, and left him there.

For 30 minutes.

It took that long for me to feel like he was calm enough to actually receive a punishment. And he accepted his punishment graciously. And we moved on with our day.

Jesse is a hard one for me to figure out. 85% of the time he is as sweet and mellow as can be. But he can quickly turn into something like this--although, it's never been that bad before.

All this to say, that regarding my last post, no it wasn't my child who screamed during church. He was saving his up for today. :)