Dinner showdown: What he says and what I hear

Tonight, it took me a while to get dinner ready.
And, I was a little late picking JB up from day care...
And... I made a quick stop with my sister to her house to check on the kitchen remodeling project.

So, there were 2 meltdowns and 1 self-imposed "time out" before we got him to eat some goldfish. By the time i served the meal, it was 7:15 (dangerously close to bath time) and JB was whimpering, "Eating time now... eating time now... eating time now?!?" Then the minute he starting eating, he transformed from bratty to sweet with a lot of "Thank you, mommy" and "here" offering us some of his food, etc. This made me feel guilty for not being more on top of my game, and grateful that soon this long commuting (that he really does take in stride) would soon be over. He ate better than most night in terms of diving right in and not complaining about the parts of the meal that were unappealing to him.

Toward the end of meal, he was becoming more tired (read: dictatorial). At one point, a piece of skin from the pear he was eating got into his mouth and JB spit it out onto his hand and threw it on the table, "Ewww". I asked him to put it on his plate and not on the table. Then he started screaming at me like a tiny man who has reached the end of his rope. A lot of the words I couldn't make out, but i heard, "NO, MOMMY." and "STOP IT." As if I was manhandling him with this simple request.

I froze and gave him my mother's famous, "No you did not just shout at me" cocked head, narrowed-eyed, raised eye-brow, piercing stare. His tone simmered down a little and he said something that I honestly did not understand. My goal at this point was to not back down, but somehow get out of this without a huge, unnecessary battle of wits. Having no clue what he had said, I chose to act like he said, "Sorry." I put the pear skin on his plate as if I was willing to do the manual labor since he had offered the apology. I waited... He measured my expression and decided against moving the skin back onto the table as he had a few seconds earlier.

Battle avoided.

Katy: (to our son) JB, that was a good job saying, 'No thank you'
Me: (Quietly to katy) Is that what he said? I couldn't understand him.
Katy: Yeah, that's what he said.
Me: Good, because I thought he said, 'fuck you' but I was going to ignore it
Katy: (laughing) I think he meant 'fuck you' but what he said was 'no thank you'.