by Richmond dad Jeb Hoge
In retrospect, it wasn’t the best decision I’ve made, but I wanted to get out of the house, my kids were sort of stir-crazy from having been home pretty much all week (stomach bug), it was my wife’s last day at work, and I wanted to go to Trader Joe’s. Therefore, I put my two sons (almost 6 and almost 3) in the car, stopped in the Dunkin Donuts drive-in for an afternoon coffee and a bagel for them to split, and off we went.
Problem #1: A sunny Saturday in November isn’t the best time to pop in at your spouse’s store for a quick hello. She was working the cash register with about a dozen people in line and so as soon as the kids saw her, she got that smiley-hidden-panic look, so I quickly hoisted the little one and towed the big one out. In other words, I got them excited about seeing her and then yanked them right away. Uh oh.
Problem #2: Not enough money for the Short Pump train. My kids are nuts for this little lawnmower with carts, and it’s cheap, but it’s also cash-only and I just didn’t think about having it. So, when the “train” puttered and dinged by, I had to say “No, we can’t” about a dozen times, which doesn’t go over well especially with a tired 3 year old.
Problem #3: After spending 20 minutes in the play area, one of the two was ready to go, and that meant it was time to go. Not fair to the other one, I know, but we still had another stop to make and I wanted to use the momentum of a ready-to-leave child. This is where it went wrong, though.
Walking back through SPTC, we passed by the “train station” and then the train itself. At this point, the 3yo is walking and wailing and the 6yo is scrunching up his face too, since all they seemed to get was “Daddy’s not letting us!” I wasn’t helping much because I was frustrated with them, too, and when we finally made it to the car, strapping my 3yo in was like the dumpling duel in Kung-Fu Panda, but I did prevail. We motored over to Trader Joe’s (me thinking that I might just scrap the whole idea but then as dads do, deciding to gut it out) and as I hoisted my 3yo out, the wailing started again.
I couldn’t get him to sit in the cart. I certainly couldn’t let him walk; he’d be on his back in a heartbeat. I went to unload the stroller and then he fought me as I tried to get him in there. We were drawing attention, both overt and surreptitious, and I read some minds.
“Poor guy.”
“I hope he doesn’t bring them in here.”
“Will you just move out of the way?”
“Let’s see what he does!” (Seriously, the couple in the car next to me really took their time leaving)
Did I snap? Actually, I did, but not in the way you’d think. What broke was my desire to try to rationalize or entreat my tantruming 3yo into going along. The old muscle memory from several years of parenting came into play; I asked my older son to just sit in the back of the car and I picked up my younger son, cuddled him tight, clucked and shh-shh-shhed him, and lightly rocked him, standing there in the parking lot. We stood there like that for 3,4,5 minutes and as I felt him relax, I gently put him into his stroller seat, snapped the buckles without resistance, and we wheeled through the parking lot. He wasn’t totally done…there was still a yelp or two to get out, but once we made it into the busy store, he had spent the tantrum and got interested in all of the people and things to see.
I thought about the experience a lot on the ride home. Had I forgotten that tantrums are about kids losing control of emotion (physically as well as mentally)? Had I expected too much cooperation from two little boys on a busy afternoon? Had I just not planned ahead well enough? The answer to everything is probably yes, but I think I learned more and gained more benefit from the experience than I would have if everything had gone my way. Screwing up is such a big part of parenting.
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