Tantrum

(this image is from Mo Williams book, "Knuffle Bunny, A Cautionary Tale" This is one of our favourite books and if you know it, you will know that Trixie has a very similar incident to the one described below)

Today was girly day, but Miss Moo Moo and I did not dress up and go out shopping or lunching. We stayed home, consequences for what happened last week.

Last Friday was the day that Miss Moo Moo decided to throw her biggest tantrum ever! I remember the day Spunky Monkey threw his biggest tantrum ever. It was a few years ago now, but I remember it, just like it was yesterday. It was in a very crowded Spotlight store and it was not pretty. I did not keep my cool and wished that the ground had swallowed me up. Biggest tantrums ever, only ever happen in very crowded places.

I don't usually write about bad things on my blog, as that's not the point of why I blog. I blog to remind myself of the good things in my life. The things that can sometimes be overlooked in our busy lives. So I find myself writing today only to tell you this:

I kept my cool.

I totally stunned myself. I handled the situation beautifully, well, as well as could be expected. Here's what happened.

We were in this shop, in this street, when my I said to my daughter, "Time to go". "But aren't we buying anything today Mum" was the reply. "Not today, lets go."

This has never been a problem in the past and I know you're are probably thinking that my daughter must get something every time we go shopping, in fact, it is quiet the opposite. Lunch out or a piece of cake at a coffee shop is our treat for the day.

So today, instead of walking happily out of the shop and on to the next one, she screamed, and cried and screamed a little bit louder. I got down quietly to her level and said "We are now going straight home," which led to a higher pitched scream. I picked her up, kicking and thrashing about and walked down the steps and out the door, thirty pairs of eyes on me. Out onto the street, she threw herself down in the middle of the footpath, still crying and kicking. I kept calm and walked on, she eventually joined me, I told her if she stopped crying I would pick her up. She did and we walked on to a seat in the shade and sat and chatted for a very long time. It was explained that there will be no more girly shopping Fridays for a while.

It had been a very crazy week and different circumstances on different days had seen the kids getting to bed an hour past there bedtime on four or five different nights.

There is a reason I am totally adamant about bedtime in this house.

This is the reason.

I forgot to mention, that not only was my daughter thrashing about on the footpath, but she was wearing a hot pink jumper, hot pink tights and hot pink tutu. She was not to be missed.