Yet another morning summoned from my bed by a crying toddler. My second child is now 2 years old and continually in the struggle between independence, and the not yet capable skills she wishes she possessed.
Since the beginning she has been a more "passionate" child than most. At about three weeks old she became colicky and cried each night for about 5-6 hours. When this phase ended we moved to baby tantrums. Now I know what most think, "oh yeah, they are upset about something not going their way and cry". But NO, I am talking screaming, throwing, rolling on the floor, doesn't want up doesn’t want down, foaming at the mouth fits that last upward of an hour with no apparent trigger. At this point there was a large chunk of time where I thought she may be suffering from some sort of medical concern.
Now we have moved on to toddler tantrums. Although as loud and long as ever, they seem to at least be able to be linked to reason. One of our most recent occurred while attempting to create a lovely girls' night out of a bike ride and ice cream.
My husband is a shift worker and works nights on a somewhat regular basis. This typically results in me attempting to come up with things done easily alone with my two little ones. We live in a very small hamlet (I believe we have lost our village status) so I figured we could bike to the corner store and get an ice cream after dinner. Seemed easy enough as the round trip is probably about 600 meters.
I started to get everyone ready. Pulled out bikes and trailer for the smaller one, got helmets down and placed on heads (I am unsure why they must wear a helmet while riding in a bike trailer- but hey I do what I am told). Finally everyone is good to go (the process of getting ready is probably actually longer then the whole trip) and we depart.
The ride to the store was pretty uneventful - really a fairly calm 4 min tour. We got to the store and went in to order. My oldest wants the electric pink ice cream which is actually raspberry sorbet. I was thinking that this was probably not a great choice for her but she was mesmerized by the colour. I asked if she was sure and the attendant lets her try a little. "Oh yes" she says and so I ordered her a small. The attendant suggests birthday cake flavour for the other as a popular choice so I ordered a small of that.
Rookie error- never allows them to get different things. So of course they wanted to try one another's and before I could protest the smaller one let the bigger one have a bite and vice versa. The bigger one liked the smaller ones better and decided they should trade. This did not go over well and so the tantrum began.
I scrapped her kicking and crying off the pavement outside the store and put her into the bike trailer. She started to scream louder. I clicked the buckle around her, a task she normally insists on completing herself. Her tantrum escalates more. We start to bike down the street as people in my neighbourhood stare. She decides to unclick the buckle and try and stand in the moving trailer. My oldest girl is whining that her legs are tired. I pull over on the road fighting to get one back into the trailer while the other is standing crying that she can't possibly peddle the last block home.
Then, a door to door sales person decides it would be a good time to approach me and ask if I am happy with my hot water tank service provider. At this point I cannot believe this is really happening. I looked at him; I imagined with a stunned angry look on my face and tell him "not really a good time" in a clearly sarcastic tone. He tries to speak more and give me a sales pitch in which I just reply NO and turn away.
I restrain them both into the bike trailer screaming and push the bikes home the last block.
Just another fun girls' night out.
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