She Ain't Heavy, She's My Meemaw
This morning, the 6:18 tantrum went off on schedule. Seriously, you can set your watch by it. In my efforts to be upbeat and cheery to combat A's foul mood, I reminded her that my mom is coming today. "You get to go to daycare this morning and then I'll pick you up after lunch. Then we'll pick up Meemaw at the airport." At this point the kid had not opened her eyes (even though I had her half dressed), but said, "I can't pick her up. Her's too heavy." Now is that a classic toddler one-liner or what? You'll have to forgive her grammatical misstep - she was not fully coherent.
The next tantrum that followed involved Froot Loops (and my failure to give her some - I had already made her a waffle and some veggie sausage). The next tantrum errupted when she got mad that Gideon was standing too close to her chair. The third (fourth?) and final tantrum (before she and her father left the house, anyway) involved the selection of toys she could take to daycare. P tried to negotiate it down to one, but lost in the final round.
Speaking of tantrums, the trip to the grocery store yesterday was as fun as I'd predicted it would be with one wrinkle I hadn't anticipated or predicted - shoplifting. Lately the kid does not want to ride in the cart. She wants to walk on her own, and I'd rather eat glass than let her do that. So I decided to let her ride in one of those car-attached-to-the-cart deals. She sat in the little red car and seemed content for a little while. My friend Jackie warned me never to use the car cart. It's unwieldy, hard to steer, etc. I kept misjudging the turning radius and slamming the car into various displays. That Jackie - she's always right.
The other problem with the car is that it allowed the kid to reach products on lower shelves. Somewhere in the bread aisle I noticed that she'd jacked a bag of cheese curds from the dairy aisle. I put it back where it came from and whispered some veiled threats through the car window. I finished my shopping as quickly as I could and then unloaded the stuff onto the conveyor belt at the check-out. I saw A reaching for a magazine so I smacked her hand away. "Sassy mama!" she yelled as loudly as she could. And then, "I'm going to tell the lady."
"Go ahead, tell the lady what a terrible mother I am," I challenged her.
So A craned her neck out the car window and told the "lady" (who is probably a sophomore in high school), "Lady, Mother hurt my hand!" The girl just nodded and smiled. She probably called child protective services after I left.
On our way out of the store I stopped at the pharmacy and picked up a prescription. As I pushed the car cart out into the parking lot, I stopped to make sure A had her coat on. Then I noticed that she had a bottle of vitamins in her hand . . . which she had just stolen from the pharmacy. I wheeled her back inside, explained to the pharmacist that my child is a thief, and put it back on the shelf.
So yeah, that was my day. My birthday. Now we begin the countdown to A's birthday in May, when she will miraculously morph into a polite, well-behaved three-year-old. Right? Right? Right? Hey, is this thing on?
The next tantrum that followed involved Froot Loops (and my failure to give her some - I had already made her a waffle and some veggie sausage). The next tantrum errupted when she got mad that Gideon was standing too close to her chair. The third (fourth?) and final tantrum (before she and her father left the house, anyway) involved the selection of toys she could take to daycare. P tried to negotiate it down to one, but lost in the final round.
Speaking of tantrums, the trip to the grocery store yesterday was as fun as I'd predicted it would be with one wrinkle I hadn't anticipated or predicted - shoplifting. Lately the kid does not want to ride in the cart. She wants to walk on her own, and I'd rather eat glass than let her do that. So I decided to let her ride in one of those car-attached-to-the-cart deals. She sat in the little red car and seemed content for a little while. My friend Jackie warned me never to use the car cart. It's unwieldy, hard to steer, etc. I kept misjudging the turning radius and slamming the car into various displays. That Jackie - she's always right.
The other problem with the car is that it allowed the kid to reach products on lower shelves. Somewhere in the bread aisle I noticed that she'd jacked a bag of cheese curds from the dairy aisle. I put it back where it came from and whispered some veiled threats through the car window. I finished my shopping as quickly as I could and then unloaded the stuff onto the conveyor belt at the check-out. I saw A reaching for a magazine so I smacked her hand away. "Sassy mama!" she yelled as loudly as she could. And then, "I'm going to tell the lady."
"Go ahead, tell the lady what a terrible mother I am," I challenged her.
So A craned her neck out the car window and told the "lady" (who is probably a sophomore in high school), "Lady, Mother hurt my hand!" The girl just nodded and smiled. She probably called child protective services after I left.
On our way out of the store I stopped at the pharmacy and picked up a prescription. As I pushed the car cart out into the parking lot, I stopped to make sure A had her coat on. Then I noticed that she had a bottle of vitamins in her hand . . . which she had just stolen from the pharmacy. I wheeled her back inside, explained to the pharmacist that my child is a thief, and put it back on the shelf.
So yeah, that was my day. My birthday. Now we begin the countdown to A's birthday in May, when she will miraculously morph into a polite, well-behaved three-year-old. Right? Right? Right? Hey, is this thing on?
Comments
Happy (belated) birthday!