My response to Adventures in House Hunting Part Deux.
This morning I read a post from my good friend Laurie that reminded of my shopping trip last Sunday with my 15 month old. (We’ll call her Julie.)
Julie had not been feeling well and and to demonstrate her general unhappiness with life she was actively resisting a much needed nap.
When we first arrived at the store, she started dancing in the shopping cart to the Christmas music, duping me into believing that this might actually be a productive trip.
She strategically waited until we were in the far back of the store with enough merchandise in the cart that I couldn’t just abandon it, before she stated screaming like a banshee.
I offered her a sippy cup, which she threw with attitude on the floor. I offered her a toy, which fell to the same fate as her cup.
I offered her some Cheerios, which she accepted under the condition that I let her hold the bag.
For those less experienced with young kids, be aware that toddlers only land food in their mouths about half the time. Allowing her to feed herself in the store meant that we were going to litter the store Hanzel & Grettel style with Cheerios. I’m not forced to decide between screaming baby or the Cheerio trail. (Sorry to the employee that eventually had to clean it up, I tried to get all the stray Cheerios up as best I could.)
We make our way to the check out, which only had 2 lines open and 20 people waiting. Julie eventually empties the bag of cereal and recommences screaming.
I’m embarrassed that she’s been screaming for so long and that I’m seeing all the same faces who witnessed the tantrum earlier with the sippy cup. I’m humiliated that she’s made a mess in the floor with her cereal. I can feel the people around me glaring that I need to get my child under control.
But more than the embarrassment and humiliation, I’m feeling guilty that my little one is feeling bad and I’m forcing her to stay in the check out line when she is clearly communicating to me that life in her world is not ok.
I picked her up in my arms and started quietly singing her favorite songs to her to calm her down.
Parents in today’s society definitely need to take a more proactive stance on discipline. I want my daughter to grow up with manners, grace and poise, unlike many of the other children I’ve run across in recent history.
Parenting unfortunately is not black and white. On Sunday, the right thing for me to do was to love on my baby, even though from the perspective of an outsider she was acting spoiled and out of control.
Sometimes pretending that your pre-schooler didn’t just yell “You smell like Poop!” at a complete stranger that you are trying to convince should rent your apartment is better than than kicking off the melt down that commences following a discipline session. Maybe the comment about baby sitting was more the icing on the cake of the Dad’s blog post about his humiliating experience attempting to rent out his apartment, while he gave his exhausted wife a well-deserved afternoon off to complete her Christmas shopping sans the screaming banshee.
I had a simular experience once. My baby was okay until we got to the checkout line and by then, she was just tired of shopping and ready to go home. The line was eternally slow and after 10 minutes, she just lost control and started screaming. She continued to scream for another 10 minutes while we continued to stand in line. When we FINALLY got to the checkout, the checker had the nerve to remark about how mad my baby was!