Grump, Grump, Grumpy

For the last few weeks we've had an attitude problem in our house. Captain Adorable has been grumpy, disrespectful, contrary, and difficult. He's been pitching a fit whenever he doesn't get his way. I've been responding with little to no patience and understanding and my frustration level through the roof at the first sign of trouble. As I am sure you can imagine, things have not been going well. In fact, we even got a note home from Captain Adorable's teacher, asking us to speak to him about his behavior in the classroom, saying that he needed to calm down, stop falling out of his chair, leaning over the girl seated next to him, and listen and follow directions. This about my super-well-behaved rule-following child, who picks his friends based on whether or not they get in touble (he hates getting in trouble)! We had a long talk about this and he straightened up--the teacher sent home a Happy-Gram to tell him and us that he had done a good job of behaving well in class after that.

Yesterday, after another series of frustrated exchanges, I finally realized what the problem is. My fractured ankle has stopped all exercise for me and for him. That is the one big change in our lives (yes, lots of other changes--him starting school, me working more) but the one really big change is that instead of daily exercise in the form of walking, running, or riding bikes, now we do nothing. I know the lack of exercise makes me grumpy and on top of that, it is difficult for me to fall asleep, which leaves me tired and therefore even more grumpy the next day. I now understand that the lack of exercise is affecting him, too. He went from riding 2-3 miles per day on his bike, in addition to maybe a walk or other activity to no activity to speak of. We've got the no-exercise-grumps!

Now that I understand what is going on, I can try to fix it. I will do the arm exercise DVD my darling mom loaned me and I have not even tried(!) with him this afternoon. I will encourage him to ride his bike...somehow...I will come up with a solution.

Can't wait to be back to normal. Heal, ankle, heal!