Course, "I hate you" is that much closer now

Yesterday I was working in the kitchen when Michael came in to ask if he could watch TV. He'd already watched about 500 hours that day as I was trying to get a lot of stuff done, and I was genuinely concerned that if he watched even one more minute his brain would explode all over my freshly dusted furniture. So I told him no.

"I don't like it when you tell me no," he said to me.

Now, he didn't say it quite like that. He got his pronouns all backwards, and there were a few missing words. But he was close enough that I thought I heard something, so I repeated it back to him for clarification.

"You don't like it when I tell you no?"

"Yeah," he whined.

And my heart practically burst out of my body. This was the first time he'd ever referenced his emotions to me. And there was a "why" component. He was unhappy BECAUSE I said no!!! Cause and effect! Complexity! I was EXCITED and THRILLED and PROUD and EUPHORIC all at once. At that moment I was so full of love for him I was willing to pretty much give him whatever he wanted.

Except let him watch TV. Really, I had *just* dusted all the furniture. So instead I knelt down and gave him a big hug and told him that I didn't like it when people told me no, either. Sometimes life just sucks and you have to deal with it. Then I offered to let him play with the garden hose out back, and he ran outside to wash the ground.

Oh be still my heart!