i am such a jerk

This one's a doozie.

Andy is angry at his dad again. The other night, Andy was a serious pill, and was so rotten that he ended up catching a whack on his bum. The little stinker deserved it, but for his future dignity I'll leave out the grisly toddler details of what he did. That was 48 hours ago and he's still furious with Shawn, and won't really speak to him or hug him.

When Shawn came home today, Andy was openly hostile. I asked Andy to give his dad a hug, and Andy stubbornly said, "NO!" Shawn made a sad face and pretended to cry. I said, "Oh Andy, you hurt Daddy's feelings. Go give him a hug."

And the little twerp went right up to his father and kicked him in the knee.

Yeah. What a jerk, right?

So he went and stood in the corner for a while and sobbed and said how sorry he was, and gave his father a half-hearted hug and an even more transparent apology. Then I started to get him dressed to go to his grandparents' house.

I talked to him and said what a parent should say. Blah blah blah, use your words, respect your parents, kicking is not good, pretty much everything that I know went right over his head but will eventually soak into that little skull if I say it enough times over the next ten years.

Then I said, "Andy, when you behave that way we don't want to be around you. We want you to leave." By this, I meant we wanted him to go over to his grandparents house.

But I guess that part wasn't clear because his face crumpled before me and tears came to his eyes and welled up, ready to spill out.

Brokenhearted, he said, "You don't want me here? But I live here! This is my home! You are my family!"

Oh yeah. I'm crap.