Evie has sustained a 17 minute meltdown today that is both shocking and appalling to witness as a parent.
This happens to other kids, not mine, right?!.
The reason (in her mind) is that she "wants to wear a dress" when being put down for a nap just now. Sounds harmless and a little silly, right? But its just one more link in the chain of avoiding the nap entirely. We've already been given "just a few more pretzels" at an already late snack time, allowed to watch a full movie this afternoon, allowed to scatter toys in the living room so we could get other chores down around the house... enough was enough. And this kid, is not about to give in now.
Evie has been adament about wearing dresses all this past summer and only with the weather getting cold (and seeing friends at school in pants) have we finally started to agree to wearing clothing other than dresses. Its still an uphill battle most days. Sometimes we even let her put on nightgowns early or a dress at naptime IF SHE'LL NAP (which, again, she often then finds yet another reason to delay the nap to the point of never taking one).
We. Are. Done.
So, Rob told Evie "no dress" when she protested at nap time today. Frankly, I would have given in. But maybe that's why we are in this mess. Its actually more important for me to back up daddy's decisions in front of Evie so I echoed his comment, "no dress!"
I then tried to switch subjects and asked her that, if she wanted a story, she had to say 'yes' or 'no'.
Too late.
We were already protesting with full tears and open, spit-filled mouth, "I want to wear a dress! I want to wear a dress!"
She became... hysterical!
We left the room.
She flew out of bed screaming down the hall, "I want to wear a dress! I want to wear a dress!" Imagine shrieking sounds and complete hysteria. I am not kidding or exaggerating. H-Y-S-T-E-R-I-C-S.
It was actually beginning to freak us out. We had never seen her loose her mind to this extreme. Now, obviously the girl is grossly over-tired... this is the real reason this is all happening. But I have still never seen such brute force and complete mind-blowing willingness to keep this going as long as she is keeping this going.
I tossed her back in bed twice and even swatted her on the butt early on in all of this. Complete fearlessness. She kept chanting through it all... so we closed the door and never went back in.
Again, the part that's that are so shocking about all of this are 1. The reason for the meltdown is so trivial, I can't believe THIS is worth all this 2. I can't give in now or the only lessons learned today are that, if the tantrum is bad enough, then mom & dad give in and 3. If she is this dramtic about a f*$king dress now... what do you do when it's smoking with her friends at age 15?
[Looking at clock].
Its silent.
She's either dead or passed-out.
In either case, I am NOT looking in on her for fear the squek in the floor will re-awaken the beast.
29 minutes total.
2 comments:
I'm pretty sure that you were right on when you decided that it was about a.) control and b.) exhaustion. If you had given in on the dress, I suspect there would have been another request. Myself, I have found that the most subtle, and most difficult to resist, request is for one more hug, or one more kiss.
It's so hard to choose the right battles. Parenting books (the kind Ted reads and I skim, anyway) make it sound so easy to give your kid options in some areas -- cereal or toast? pink socks or purple? In the Night Kitchen or Runaway Bunny? -- while remaining firm in other areas -- you will brush your teeth, you will stay in bed. But, most of the time, there are so many levels of shit involved in even trivial-seeming issues.
You want to impress your kid with your loving authority, but you also want to give your kid the internal resources needed to negotiate the more difficult choices that life has in store, but it's so hard to know how to achieve both of those things. You also want your kid to just take a freaking nap so you can have a break, of course, and it's hard to keep sight of long-term goals when you're dealing with a sleep-deprived toddler.
I hope you didn't think I was building up to some bit of wisdom gained from my extra year of parenting, by the way. I'm just saying I feel ya, sister.
@Jessica - hilarious! Ah, yes... after awhile parenting can get down to the old saying "Its a crapshoot."
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