Remember when I hated the awful, terrible twos? The threes? Are much, much worse.
I know I briefly alluded to this back in December, but we had a “behavioral incident” last month.
My kids go to daycare twice a week – the same daycare where they went back when I worked full time. Since I still do work, in some capacity, I decided to keep them in school. I could have gone with a standard preschool, but this is where they grew up, and they are comfortable there, and have friends there. My daughter’s in Pre-K, and my son is in preschool.
So, on a Wednesday, it was school picture day. It happened that the pictures were going to be taken right during gymnastics. I made the decision to skip out on the photos, and just do the class. But then, the director offered to move around the schedule a bit so that both of them could take their pictures. All I had to do was bring the two of them for their individual and joint pictures, and my son’s class picture, then go to gymnastics, then back for my daughter’s class picture. It was a dumb decision in retrospect. But it was my decision.
We hurried around getting ready in the morning, and then I got my daughter dressed. She’s a total ham, and had a full Christmas outfit – a dress, tights, shoes, barrettes, etc. She looked beautiful. I pulled my son’s outfit together – jeans and a sweater – and he refused to get dressed. Finally, we had to leave. Since it was a warm day, I decided to keep him in his t-shirt and underwear (he grabbed a ski cap on the way out) and carry him to the car (with the picture clothes packed in a bag).
But guess what? When we got to school, he still refused to wear the clothes. He watched my daughter take her picture, then his class take their group picture, and still wouldn’t wear clothes. Finally, when we were almost late for gymnastics, he agreed to put on his gymnastics clothes.
On gymnastics days, I let my kids have a special treat if they are good – a donut each at Dunkin Donuts. So, because my son refused to wear clothes, he got no donut. When we left gymnastics, he asked for a donut, and I told him no. I stuck to it, even though I felt bad, because that’s the only way he’ll learn.
Well, he threw a full temper tantrum. It went on for over 20 minutes, where he stood, screaming in the parking lot of gymnastics. He wouldn’t let me pick him up. He wouldn’t let me put him in the car. He just screamed and screamed and screamed.
With our tight schedule, those were 20 minutes I couldn’t afford to lose, so my daughter missed out on being in her class picture. Once she figured that out, she had a temper tantrum. I drove home with both of them screaming in the car. I was shaking – I knew that although I hadn’t lost my cool, somehow I did something wrong with this situation. How could one gentle, sweet, little three year old boy go so crazy-insane over jeans and a sweater?
It was a good thing I had the Disney Moms Panel training trip that weekend, because I needed that break.
