Health & Fitness
10% Tantrum
Charlie may be cute but his tantrums are not. What is a frazzled Minnesota mom to do when her four-year-old is giving her an eye tic and a serious penchant for cream cheese frosting?
Someone quoted a statistic to me the other day that claimed preschoolers are obedient 90 percent of the time. That leaves them rebelling against their parents a mere 10 percent of the day.
Can that really be true? Can this sharp anxious headache, this high strained voice, and this tic in my left eye really be explained away by a 10 percent rate of crazy?
Charlie’s temper tantrums seem inevitable, like the rising of the tide, or the fact that I slept through fitness yoga at the Y again. Every time I enter a store I have to take a deep breath. I try to steer us away from the toys but it is very hard. Those wily store managers always seem to know the exact item I do not want Charlie to see (the Lightning McQueen musical car keys! The Lego helicopter! The Spider Man roller skates!) and they proceed to place them in a position that makes them impossible to avoid.
Most of Charlie’s tantrums start this way, with a toy or a Super Hero shirt or a package of candy that I refuse to buy. A lot of them end with me carrying a four-year-old kicking and screaming out of the store without buying what I went there to get in the first place.
Online shopping is looking more and more appealing. In fact, why I go anywhere these days, ever, is a complete mystery. Chalk it up to eternal optimism. That and my coping mechanisms, copious amounts of red velvet cake and Dinosaur Train.
As with everything else, it helps to have a sense of humor about four-year-olds. I learned this the other day when the whole family was in the car and we passed by the mall. Out of nowhere, Charlie started shouting “CHIPOTLE!” The fact that he even knows how to pronounce the name of this restaurant, let alone that it is housed in the mall, probably tells you that we go there too often.
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“Chipotle! Chipotle! Chipotle!” Charlie hollered as he waved his arms around and kicked his feet. Tears began streaming down his little cheeks. “Chipotlechipotlechipotlechipotlechipotle!!!” I couldn't help it, I started to chuckle. My six-year-old began giggling, and my husband pulled out his video camera to record the whole thing. I’ve made it clear that we are not putting Charlie’s Chipotle tantrum on Youtube, but that doesn’t stop us from occasionally enjoying it at home on a Friday night... Continue Reading
