Well here we are in April, the month of Fiona's birthday (3!), and also her middle namesake, Spring. Weather is gorgeous here as usual, and we've been really busy with fun stuff and a house full of people... more on that in a later post I think. In the meantime, since our camera has died an horrrible death at the hands of the still-2-year-old ("lens error, turn off camera"), I thought I would post an email I just found in my "unsent drafts" folder. I started to write it and never finished after Julie-Ann posted two comments on the "Sleeping Lion" post last fall--- her comments are like the Yin and Yang of parenting: "hang in there, don't take any crap", and "P.S. just give in, it is easier"!!!! I thought that was really funny and wrote:
"We definitely give the little darling plenty of rope, but I think you can't give in once the tantrum has started. For example, Fiona really, really, really cares what color bowl she gets her cereal in in the morning, and that is fine, I give her a choice and she can pick whatever she wants (unless the one she wants is dirty, I'm not washing dishes on command!). BUT, if she picks the red bowl, and I put in the cereal and raisins (while listening to cries of "NOT cranberries, ONLY raisins") and pour the milk and give it to her and THEN she looses her marbles over wanting the blue bowl instead, well, tough cookies kid, go to your room until you are hungry enough to eat out of the red bowl you wanted in the first place."
Thankfully Fiona has mostly moved on from her bowl-color obsession, but sadly has also honed her tantrum and bargaining skill to a razor edge. Enough said.
Hope everyone is enjoying Spring or Fall somewhere!
Devon
3 comments:
It's autumn here... but still dry and 32 degrees.
It sounds as though all y'all are getting used to the tantrum business. You're doing well.
They do get worse at 15 or so though.
hahahahaha!
dude, as you can see from my yin/yang approach ;-) i really dont think there is any magic strategy or approach or answer.
what i DO think, is that some kids are harder to deal with than others. eg, oliver has never in his life considered the colour of his bowl or ever created an issue out of anything at all; the little guy literally never gets pissed off... if he feels hard done by he gets tears and then usually a hug from us and then he is all smiles again.
Annie would definitely care about the colour of the bowl, eg i heard our big kids telling their visitor, 'no you cant give annie that cup she will get cranky' and between them they pandered to the little sh*t, so Annie has her tantrums alleviated by two obliging suckers ;-)
Charlotte on the other hand would probably throw the bowl at you and have such a hardcore tantrum that she would throw up in a fit of her own anger (at age two, i mean). He anger levels are IMPRESSIVE. She is positively volcanic at times. We have built a shelter under the house for the duration of her raids ;-)
On the upside, the bolshy kids are in charge of their lives... wait til she is in school - she will walk in and start running the place!! (whereas with Oliver it is 'dont forget your bag!' every day)
They are all different, you just got a nice strong one!!! xx
ps in a final bid to be helpful here :-) i will share this story from my childhood. we are playing piggy in the middle and my it is my brother's turn and he starts bawling cause he doesnt want to be the piggy in the middle, and so my mum is at a loss, and i go (little miss manipulative) up to him and put my arm around him and say 'how about you be the soldier in the middle?' he was all fine with that. there is always a way around difficult people!! xx
ps when annie wont wear her sensible clothes i sigh and fold them up and walk out the room and say (loud enough for her to hear) i will just put these in the post for baby fiona, she will love them! and she runs after me wanting to wear them - hehehehehe. am evil, i know!!! x
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