The Big Pink Meltdown

    Granted, it was a risky move.  Take overtired toddler to Off 5th, the Saks outlet, during a snowstorm - but we all needed attire for The Best Engagement Party Ever coming up next weekend.  Now or never.  Do or die.  Armed with plenty of toddler apps in the iPhones, off we went.  Things started out great.  She was a doll face, helping mommy get in and out of the dresses.  She loved "fashion show".

    Then, she saw it.  The tulle-iest, pinkest, fluffiest, ballerina-twirly dress you can imagine, topped with pink frosted cupcake dreams and then covered in vomit of valentine's day.  It's the kind of dress I've avoided having in her closet since birth.  The dress that stands for everything I've tried to counter.  Unfortunately, my child has been brainwashed by sources that shall remain unnamed (GRANDMA!!!!) and well, she currently believes she is a "Boo-Tee-Fool Pincess".

    So, no harm no foul, we try the dress on.  She. won't. take. it. off.  She's hysterical.  My husband can hear her in the men's department.  This child has never taken to a "lovey" or a "blankie" but she is crying for this dress that Armani himself could probably hear her in the ivory fashion tower.  I finally managed to bribe her out of it by letting her carry it, when we were promptly physically assaulted by a dressing room guard who may have actually never seen a 2 year old before.  She made the error of grabbing it out of D's hand so the precious merchandise wouldn't drag on the floor.  Ever serene, I said "We're buying it!  Give it back, quick!" and snatched it out of her hand and swept D. up to carry her out of there.

     It was too late.  The dress had been threatened, the child was hysterical, the people browsing through racks of $1,421.00 dresses (I know because I accidentally tried one on) were trying to kill us with their eyes, and my knight in shining armor appeared.  He gathered all the mess out of my arms (2 puffy coats, 6 dresses, hat, scarf...) and in a past life, here's what would have gone down:

ME: "Where the f were you? Couldn't you hear her screaming? Why didn't you come sooner?"
HIM: "I was trying to find you"
ME: "Just take this crap and pay and I'll meet you at the car.  This is horrible. I can't believe I can't go anywhere.  Blah blahblahblalalalala.
Hurt feelings, blame, ire, pouting, and probably me grounding myself for a week with no ice cream would have ensured as well as at least 5 hours of silent treatment.

     This time, standing there with a hysterical toddler, surrounded by the Beautiful (thin)(rich) People and fully feeling like That Family, and That Frumpy Mom Who Would Never Wear That D&G Dress, I surrendered.  I looked at my husband and said, "I just don't know what to do right now".  And in that shockingly calm moment of realizing that on this journey of motherhood, I don't have the answers - I don't even have 1/5th of the answers - my mother's intuition took over.  I knew to whisper calmly in her ear, to explain to her all the things that were going to happen between now and when we went to the register.  The crisis was averted, somehow it worked out, and I certainly can't claim it was pretty, that people didn't stare, and that I didn't want to sink into a hole in the designer ground.  But that admission, "I just don't know what to do right now" was liberation.  Freedom.  Complete permission to try something, anything, to see the struggling little human in my arms and work through our Great Big Pink Mess together.

    I hope in my next overwhelming parenting/career/marriage moment, when I feel that complete panic arising, I'll be able to surrender again, which gives me complete control in the situation.  It's a magic white flag to wave!

Biting, spitting, and hitting

     Don't some things just bring out the Demon Mom in you?  Personally, she can tantrum on the floor of CVS over some hideous unicorn Pillow Pet and I do a-ok, unruffled, picture of serenity.  She can spill oatmeal all over the front of my shirt on the way out to work and I can just sail through the whole part about ironing another shirt and being late for work and school without so much as a hitch or a hiccup.  Even the throwing-food-on-the-floor-when-there-are-starving-kids phase didn't phase me.  Neither did hitting once I figured out a little plan and stuck to it.  I was all, "Oh, this is a natural part of testing boundaries and development, it'll pass".

     Then comes spitting.  Holy Demon Mother.  The child is spitting.  In. My. Face.  On. Purpose.  

     And laughing.

    Nuh-nuh-no.  That sweet little yellow-clad nature child up there, spitting in my face and laughing?  It cannot be.  It doesn't fit into my picture of her, all ringlets and sunlight and sweetness and snuggles.  All tree hugging and co-sleeping and Mommy-is-my-idol.  Spitting? We don't spit on our idols!  Am I falling off the pedastal?  Am I losing rank?  Am I sucking at raising her?  

     Rationally, I am sure I'm doing a fine job.  She's a lovely child.  At 10:30pm at a grownup party when other 2 year olds are having completely reasonable meltdowns, Miss Bink is just sighing on my shoulder as we wrap her up to go home.  "I just want to dance," she breathes.  That's our meltdown.  Amazing.

     What is it about spitting (or fill in the blank with your own behavior of maddening choice) that completely, utterly unravels all the serenity parenting I've developed?  I go straight into crazy mode.  Is it because it's willful?  Because it's germy?  Because I'm afraid she'll spit on another kid at daycare if I don't nip it in its horribly spraying saliva bud?  

     Parents, teachers, people who know a kid... what unravels you and takes you from 0-60 straight out of the I'm-okay-you're-okay parenting zone?  Why?  How do you tackle those moments where a few conscious breaths are out of the question?

     I've been working on a  couple of solutions:

     

     1) Come up with a plan as soon as you cue into one of the things that turns you into the tazmanian devil.  A plan helps you stay calm.  A plan takes the reactionary component out of the picture. 

     2) Just walk away.  At least then my inner manic mama doesn't eat her young.  

     3) Plan a replacement behavior and expect it.  It's part of the plan thing.  Having a replacement behavior you can request - "Give hugs, not hits" or "Make fishy face, not spitty face"gives an alternative for them to learn, and gives you a minute to make silly out of serious.

     4)    Give your perspective.  It's totally fair to tell them how it makes you feel.  "Spitting hurts my feelings/feels icky/makes me mad" gives your child a chance to make it right.  

     5) Wig out an apologize later.

     6) Finally, remember that discipline means "to teach," and in such a framework, our job is to help children navigate these developmental, emotional phases safely.  

     Next time Demon Mom pops out, I'll try to snag a picture.