bad mommy moment

Dennis loves to touch the stereo. There are fascinating lights and dials and eject buttons and a nifty slide out CD tray that holds five discs. Despite repeated Time Outs and warnings, he continues to touch the stereo. I was working in the kitchen when I heard the music stop. I went in there and caught him touching the stereo, of course, and unloading the CDs onto the floor. I told him to stop touching it. He didn't. I spanked him one tap on his bottom and STILL he wouldn't take his finger off the stereo. He started crying and I picked him up to remove him from the stereo, probably a little forcefully, and that's when I noticed that his index finger was stuck in the CD tray. My pulling him away caused a nasty cut on the tip of his finger that bled a good bit for awhile. Oh, he cried. And he didn't understand why I wouldn't let go of his finger, why I kept pressing on it with tissue to stop the bleeding. He kept crying and begging me to let him down. He finally told me he wanted to go to bed. The bleeding stopped, a Band-Aid was applied, and all was well again, especially since Daddy came home and the pizza finished cooking just after the bandaging. I wonder if you can imagine how terrible I felt and still feel.

We hiked again this afternoon, and somewhere in the wilderness, my child littered. There's a tiny Band-Aid loose at some point on the trail. It was a good hike, with Dennis shouting encouragement to Gran (who was behind him where he couldn't see her) the entire time. He enjoyed chatting with Allison, too, and just as we were finishing the last bit of Yellow trail, he announced "ready to get down" and "ready to go to car seat!". I suppose he's not crazy about the confinement of the backpack, but he knew all day that he'd be riding in it. I'd ask him "Dennis do you want to go hiking?" and he'd grin and say "walk woods?" and "ride backpack?". He was very excited to go. He did get to tromp around a bit in the middle of the hike. We arrived at Maggie's Glen and he climbed up on the bench and sat to have his snack and drink, and then he walked down to the stream and said "Mommy let's sit rock". We sat together on a big rock and watched the water flow by. We also said "excuse me frog" and "bye bye frog" and "happy birthday frog, happy birthday waterfall" repeatedly on the trail (yes, we saw a frog). I don't imagine I'll see much wildlife with Dennis along--he's a happy little chatterbox and talks continuously throughout our hikes. I think it's kind of fun.