A New Day

As you can tell from my last post, Sophie and I have been having a few "issues" lately. I think it is because all of sudden there is no school, no schedule, and too much time spent in the house with baby brother and sister.

It came to a head yesterday, we had her last dance class in the morning and went out to lunch as usual with the dance girls and their mothers. Sophie had a meltdown because her quesidilla tasted funny, and she refused to eat it. I told her that was fine, but not to expect lunch when we got home, because this was her lunch. She threw a fit, and started mouthing off: arms crossed, scowl on her face: You are a mean mother, I don't like this lunch and I am NOT going to eat it! I imediately thought of Nellie Olsen from Little House on the Prarie (or as my brothers called it: Little Disaster on the Prarie). Very calmly, I removed her from the table, and she spent some time by herself at a nearby booth. She did come back to our table, but was not much better. After another outburst, I told her she had lost her bedtime story and song. That seemed to make an impact.

Once we got home, she was fine for about an hour or so, then started up again. I don't remember what specifically I asked her to do, but she said no and stuck her tongue out at me. That was it, I told her she was in her room for the rest of the day. It was 4 pm by this point, so there wasn't much day left. This was pretty traumatic for her though, I only let her come down for dinner at 5pm, and she was back up by 5:30. At 5:45 I went up to get her bathed, and she was asleep. She did however, wake up at 6:30 and come down to find me. I got her into her pjs and she went right back to bed, no story, no song.

This did seem to make a difference because we had a much better day today. I could really see her struggling with her replies to me today, she would start to give a whiny excuse, then look at me and instantly change her tune. Whenever this happened I told her how nice it was to hear her "kind" voice. She had her first dentist appnt. this morning and it went really well. This afternoon we had dress rehearsal for the dance recital on Sunday. It was very cute, and I had tears in my eyes watching her. I am glad I got to see it once before Sunday, so maybe I can keep it together then!

Tonight when she was going up to get ready for bed, she said to me, "Mommy, I didn't lose my story or my song today, aren't you glad?" And I have to say that yes, I was glad. It makes for a much more pleasant day for all of us!