Rough Patch

My three year old and I are going through a rough patch. It's not the first time. Occasionally, he's gone through what I call the "I hate Mommy" phase. This particular one is really bad. Yesterday, while running errands, he got angry with me because we were picking up Daddy's Christmas gift (and none for B) and he told me he loves Daddy more. When I asked why, he said it was because I'm a bad Mommy. For the record, I'm not.

Luckily, we were going to see Santa today, and I was able to use that as leverage, telling him that Santa loves me very much (as most of y'all know, Santa is my Dad), and that if I were to tell Santa he'd said that, it would not go well for him. I also asked him how he would feel if I told him I loved Daddy more than I loved him. He admitted this would make him very sad, and I told him it makes me very sad when he says it, too. Both of these points seemed to hit home pretty well. He was very apologetic and insisted that he does, in fact, love me very much. (Which, of course he does. He is an only child with a stay at home mom...I'm pretty much his world, a lot of the time.)

But it doesn't change the overall pattern, which is that he's in kind of a nasty phase with me, and as much as I realize one shouldn't take such things personally coming from a three year old, it's really hurtful...in addition to just being unacceptable behavior which, from a Mom's perspective, is never ok anyway.

So, sigh. I just hope it's over soon.