"Momma's Boy" & "Daddy's Girl"!

We figured out a long time ago that we have the classic "momma's boy" and "daddy's girl", but last week it was in full force! However, there were also tender learning moments involved. Emma had a couple breakdowns, crying for daddy in the middle of the day just because she missed him. One day last week after putting Emma in time out, she yelled at me "You're not nice to me today!" and slammed her door! We also heard from Derrick last week a few times, "I don't love dada!" Luckily, Jon and I know better than to let what our 2 and 4 year old say get to us too much. Saturday was Emma's big blow out! She woke up early that morning and was cranky most of the day. I tried to get her to take a nap (something she normally does not do, but she was tired!). After struggling with that she started throwing a huge fit, yelling, flailing her arms everywhere and not listening to anything I was trying to tell her. We were definitely butting heads! I told her to just sit on her bed for a while. I needed to calm down before I could talk to her. I was playing with Derrick in his room when I heard a sad, little voice in the next room. In between sobs Emma said the following, "Dear Heavenly Father, can you ever forgive me? Help me to make the right choices. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt like a horrible mom! Here I was trying to calm down so I could go talk to her and she was in there praying for forgiveness. What a lesson I learned from my sweet Emma that day! We had a long talk and I told her how happy that made me that she thought to say a prayer. Sometimes the kids are the teachers in life!
Well, on to Derrick's big fit! His came on Sunday. Usually Derrick goes to nursery at church without any problems, but the last few weeks he has had a hard time. It especially gets worse when I take him. So the last couple weeks Jon has taken Derrick to class. Last Sunday Derrick immediately started screaming and huge tears rolled down his cheeks when it was time to go to class. It wasn't that he didn't want to go, (he loves nursery)...he just didn't want dad to take him. I left him crying as I took Emma to her class. On my way back I ran into Jon and Derrick in the hallway. Derrick was still crying and wanting me to take him to class. I gave him a hug and kiss and told him to go with his dad. I went into my class and could hear Derrick screaming all the way out of the church! Jon came into class about 5 minutes later and said Derrick's teacher took him and he calmed down a little! You may be thinking, "was it worth all of that, why didn't I just take him to class?" I asked myself the same thing. But, Jon reminded me we need to teach him he can be separated from me! Unfortunately there is no great lesson learned here like there was with Emma. Derrick has not had a breakthrough and still cries if Jon tries to put him to bed at night! We have had long talks about how it is not nice to say that he doesn't love daddy. And usually after those talks he ends up crying and saying he loves daddy lots! I'm sure that when Emma starts school and it is just me and Derrick all day long, it may get worse instead of better!
But, we love them all the same!