Difficult Few Days

It all started Friday night...

We were at Jesse's parents'. Both his sisters were there with their families. There were 3 other kids besides our two. We all stayed pretty late. We've all been staying up late at home but I think he was a bit overstimulated from being around the other kids. By the time we left, Ethan was getting fussy. He had been not listening off and on all night but when we went to leave, he threw a FIT. Jesse ended up carrying him to the car and trying to get him in the carseat, despite his kicking, screaming, clawing, etc. After a few minutes Jesse's dad offered to carry Gabriel in his carseat out to the car. What followed was a disaster... I will spare the details, but by the time we finally drove off, both boys were crying in the backseat, I was furious with Jesse, and his dad had jumped all over me :( I was FURIOUS! And I rarely get like that. If my best friend hadn't been out of town, the boys and I would've dropped Jesse off at our house and gone to hers.

Jesse tried to give all of us some space Saturday and stayed in his home office working. I dealt with Ethan all day. He would shove his brother, take toys away, and generally take out his aggression on him. I had to stay in the room with him to keep Gabriel from getting hurt. Every tiny frustration was followed by a meltdown. Periodically throughout the day he would start hitting himself and pulling his hair when his anxiety really kicked in. Whenever he saw Jesse, he would start clearing his throat. By the end of the night I had realized it was an anxiety/OCD reaction. It was awful. I was hurt and Jesse and I hadn't spoken 5 words to each other in almost 24 hours. So unlike us...

Saturday night I told Jesse I needed to talk to him about what had happened. It turned into a blowout :( But we texted later after the boys and I went to bed and it got a little better.

Sunday was a little better. Ethan was somewhat calmer. Somewhat. He didn't freak out whenever Jesse came in the room, but the throat-clearing continued.

Today (Monday) was a little better than yesterday. Ethan was calmer. Still not normal. And whenever Jesse or I would correct him, he'd start clearing his throat again. Jesse's worried he can't breathe because of how he sounds when he does it. I'm positive it's a reaction to the stress.

Jesse and I still haven't talked about Friday night. It's up to him now. But I don't want it hanging over us. On paper, we agree on certain things as far as parenting and discipline. But in practice, we're often far apart :(

Oh, and on top of everything else, my uncle (my mom's sister's husband) isn't expected to make it another day before going home to his Savior. He's the one who performed our wedding so it's not the easiest thing to lose him. And we got up this morning to find our very first bird (a 10-yr-old budgie named Fraggle) dead on the cage bottom. We knew it was coming, but it's still sad.