Gage had a horrible day. The babysitter said that in two years, she hadn’t had such a bad day with him. Timeouts barely made a dent and just seemed to fuel him on.

By the time I made it home, he was in full performance bad attitude. Some of his behaviors alone weren’t anything out of the usual (sad to say). It was altogether the behaviors that posed the real problem. Disrespectful, destructive, out of control.

The next few hours that ensued were nothing short of a disaster from all parties (well, except Quinn, who really was an innocent bystander). Timeouts, his yelling, our raised voices. It was ugly. We talked about the reasons why he might be feeling badly and there was a lot of crying with half answered questions.

At 8pm when I went to get meds ready I realized a bad mistake. Gage took his night meds during the morning. That didn’t impact his anti-rejection drugs, but it did impact his behavioral (concerta) and his antidepressant (zoloft) med, plus he took melatonin, which helped him be calm during the morning hours with the sitter.

Julian was upset and had to step outside. Tears were shed. I went upstairs to let Gage know why he was so out of control. He was in bed crying uncontrollably. I told him what happened and asked him to come to me and we would cry together. Because it was a bad day. And while he is responsible for his actions, we knew why he felt out of control. That daddy felt terrible about him not having the right meds, but we’re human and we make mistakes. But as a family we would get through it and tomorrow will be better. He let me comfort him by holding him while he was crying and I kissed his head. Which he never lets me do. So I guess if there is a silver lining…

“Tomorrow will be better Gage, I promise. That is the good news about tomorrow, it will be different and can be better.”

“No it won’t.”

“Yes it will. Because you will have the right meds and they help you. But you know you have to tell me when you feel out of control like that again, okay?”

“Why did daddy mess up my meds?”

“Well, sometimes we make mistakes. We’re human. All we can do is try to make it right with the people involved, like you and Quinn. Both of you had a bad day, you know.”

And then we cried a little more and then Gage and Quinn saw Julian cry too, and it was a cryingfest that left Quinn wondeirng what the hell happened to her family.

So that is how we moved on from today. We cried and then we laughed a little bit, too, about how adults make mistakes too but how we need to own up to them and tell everyone involved we’re sorry. Gage let me say a little prayer with him because he was having a hard time letting today go, saying “I can’t stop thinking about today to so I can go to sleep.” So I prayed for him to only think about fun things like trees and poptarts and fixing things and taking them apart and of bottle caps. And he let me hold his hand the whole time.

And then we will wake up tomorrow ready for the new day.