Violence Is Never The Answer

Is that the face of a child that would beat up his mother? No. Never. Well, it is. On Tuesday, I came into work with a swollen left eye because my son thought violence was the answer. While he has kicked me in the in the face in the middle of the night while crashed out on my bed, he has never intentionally tried to hurt his mother until this time.
It happened Monday night while trying to get him to go to sleep at quarter to ten. I didn't think I was being unreasonable the kid is 19 months and I can barely stay up past ten but he did not agree with my assessment. He wanted to play. I told him no, then Daddy told him no and then he cried - big tears. Wally caved and told him it was okay, but Ben knew I was unhappy with his display. Ben knew that he wasn't going to get one over on the ba-ba or so I thought...
He calmed down a bit and laid down by me on the couch (and for the record I don't have one of those kids that can just be put down in their crib - tried it and if you want to try again be my guest). He still was pretty angry. He started throwing his head back and I said, "Benjamin please stop that you are going to hurt Mommy." His response was to head butt me as hard as he could like some Ultimate Fighting Champion to shut me up. I immediately began to cry. Wally had to reprimand Ben and tell him that was not nice that he really hurt Mommy. Then Benjamin started to cry because he was scared or he knew by crying we would feel bad for him (I believe it was the latter). When he started to cry, I thought "hey, kid this is about me not you". But when he reached up and began to stroke me like he does to Bruin when I say "be nice to Bru", I knew I had to forgive him.
As I sit here still with a swollen eyelid and Benjamin continues to grow as a person, I will continue to remind him that violence is never the answer - unless someone is really asking for it then maybe it is ok. And maybe in his mind that night I was asking for it.