Controlling the controllables

Want to get mentally stronger? Try running on an 80+ degree day in 80+% humidity while pushing a running stroller carrying a two-and-a-half-year-old tornado who passes the time by alternating between randomly demanding a change of direction ("Go that way, Mommy!" while pointing vehemently at a stranger's driveway) and saying things like, "Get out!" (meaning I don't want to be in this stroller any longer) and "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?" (followed by not actually saying anything when request for my attention is acknowledged).

The complaining started a mile and a half in. Ruby objected to my turning the stroller around to head back towards home and wanted to play in the "Ruby park." It's her adorable phrase for any swing set that she sees. While huffing and puffing my way through the next quarter mile, I didn't have the energy to explain for the 900th time that we can't just go up to a stranger's house and climb on their swing set. So, "Nope," was all she got out of me. This, understandably, frustrated her. However, having had this conversation 899 times before, I didn't think a longer conversation would result in anything other than that same frustration, and I'd be more out of breath. So I took the shorter path to her frustration, and just uttered a, "nope."

Another quarter of a mile down the road, and the "Get out!" began.  I reassured Ruby that we would be home shortly. So then the "Get out!" was followed by, "No, no go home!" Hmmm. No one ever said 2 1/2 year olds were logical. She wanted to not be in the stroller and not go home, but we were in the middle of a country road between a soy field and a hay field. How would getting out help? I felt my pulse pick up a bit. Probably my blood pressure, too. I was getting frustrated. I was trying to run in this miserable heat and counter an illogical two-year-old with logic. This wasn't going well.

With a half mile to go to get home, the one thought that clicked in my head was that I was the control here. If I was going to finish the run strong, that was up to me. If I was going to finish the run frustrated, that was up to me. Ruby was going to do what Ruby was going to do, and I was going to choose how to react. The distance to home wasn't changing. I say all the time that I need to control the controllables, but here I was letting the controllables control me.

I put myself in a parenting time out. I slowed up the pace. I apologized to Ruby for having snapped at her when she started with the whining (my less-than-proud parenting moment), and I finished out the run. Lesson re-learned for the day.