Let me back up to a weeee bit earlier in the day. To the not so perfect part. Blakely got up early and I was letting Lonnie sleep in so I took B to do a little shopping. We decided to go in Old N.avy to see some of the spring stuff since B has about zero spring clothes. I left the house in a rush so I didn't have the stroller. She is usually pretty good about holding my hand when we run in places so I chatted with her in the car about holding my hand and staying RIGHT BESIDE ME. She agreed and did really good. Until she spotted these shoes.
Oh my lord. This child started yelling SHINY SHOES! SHINY SHOES! She made a beeline to them and started tearing her boots off while screaming about how "pitty" they were. I threw them in our pile of stuff to take to the dressing room and headed that way quickly. While I was trying on things in the dressing room I realized in my haste to get the screaming toddler to the dressing room she had grabbed about 5 things for herself. Totally fine because she was entertained while I tried on.
And then we tried to leave the dressing room. Cue more screaming. I started to feel a wee bit panicky because she wasn't really listening to me like she normally does so I decided it was time to get the heck out of dodge. I sat her down and explained to her that she needed to use her inside voice and walk with me to the check out or we ABSOLUTELY WERE NOT BUYING THE SHOES. Yes ma'am mommy is what she said. This is usually how the disciplining goes when we are out in public. She starts to get a little loud and/or "out of control" and I firmly explain things to her and she obeys. Works well. Anyway....
We get to the check out line (I despise lines) and she realizes that we don't have those 5 random things that she picked out. Holy freak out. Only this time with flailing. She yanked her hand out of mine and ran back to the clothes. I smiled at the other shoppers as they looked at me with pity in their eyes and darted off to chase her. I caught her at about the pajamas and she had already taken her shirt off and was working on her pants. I could not believe the meltdown she was having. I threw all of the things we were going to buy to the floor, scooped her up and we walked straight out of the door to the car. Because no. There will be no acting like that!
I have never seen this child cry so hard. And over clothes. She is usually so good in public so this totally caught me off guard. We left Old Navy and and went to do a few other errands I needed to get done...errands that didn't require getting out of the car because it was a good 30 minutes before she stopped crying and whining. I just acted like everything was normal as she was screaming in my backseat. I would calmly say every so often "Blakely, if you calm down and stop crying then we can talk about it". Finally she calmed down and quietly asked me about the clothes and shoes. We talked about how she acted in the store and that is why we didn't buy the clothes or the shoes. She took it all in and didn't cry. As painful as the whole ordeal was (am I being dramatic?) I feel like she definitely learned something from it.
That leads me back to the party. She was a complete and total angel while we were there. When Eli was opening his presents she wanted to watch but I was sitting on the other side of the room. I pointed out a spot to her and told her she could walk up to that spot and stand right there and watch. She did exactly what I told her and kept looking back over her shoulder at me for confirmation that she was doing the right thing. When she was done eating she wanted to go back outside. I told her to wait for me to finish and she quietly did. And she waited very patiently for her ice cream....
I'm not sure the point of this except that I am thankful to see that my disciplining actually works occasionally. Sometimes I feel like I am the only parent who disciplines and sometimes I feel like I spend my whole day either giving timeouts or threatening timeouts. It can be draining. That is not to say Lonnie won't do it because he does, I am just around her more! He is the fun parent. He plays chase with her, gives her food off of his plate and lets her run free in the grocery store. I refuse to play chase (because then she thinks it is fun to play that in public places LIKE OLD N.AVY. No), I make her eat food off of her own plate (so she won't eat off of everyone else's when we are out) and I make her ride in the grocery cart (duh). I just try really hard to be consistent in what I expect from her. I feel like that is the best way for her to learn. I know it is worth it in the end. I know it is my job to teach her these things but sometimes it is so hard to be hard on her. (I won't lie...sometimes it is easy! Like when she pours my fingernail polish all over the bathroom floor!) I never really understood how hard disciplining a child would be. Ugh!
Good news is that she still loves me :)
