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It all began so innocently.
Amelia declared in her usual way that she wanted to walk around the supermarket, rather than sit in the obligatory child seat in the trolley. I think it went something like; ‘Gadana lackdawa!’ with lots of gesturing and pointing to be lifted out of the seat.
I relented. I wanted her to have some fun and she LOVES walking, its all ‘en vogue’ with her crew at the moment, or so she tells me. You get it…
Anyway. She toddled up and down the aisles, holding my hand, shouting (really quite loudly) with excitement and sheer joy at the prospect of having this new-found freedom in the big, shiny world of the shop. It soon became all too clear, however, that this experiment was going to have some problems. Not only did she begin to want to run away from me, but she also thought she would mix it up a little by running directly towards any or all available shelves, containing anything from heavy tins of lemonade to eggs.
My heart was in my mouth. I had visions of her ending up with a concussion from trying to lift a whole chicken up over her head, or worse, pulling a whole stand of apple pies down on some unsuspecting old lady.
So I put her back into the trolley seat.
Strangely, she didn’t seem keen on the idea. It began with a bit of resistance when I first picked her up, following on to loud shouting and waving of hands and demanding to be put back down…but then soon became a scene of total carnage, when she realised her bum was firmly back in the dreaded trolley seat.
Her face moved from its healthy pink to an ever increasing shade of purple…hot sticky tears poured (literally poured) down her cheeks. And the screaming.
Oh God, the screaming.
People were looking at us. Judging.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. (I mean really, what would you do?)
She was so loud. SO loud. And she writhed and threw herself bodily around in the little seat, leaning over the side like a seasick person on the deck of a ship; refusing to be pacified by soothing words, my car keys (usually a favourite toy) or even the emergency biscuit.
It probably only lasted 2 minutes but it really did feel like an eternity. I managed to calm her down with promises of ‘I will let you walk in a minute’ (yes, I’m a big fat liar) and with that I swept her out to the car park fairly sharpish.
And what did her Dad say with a roll of his eyes when I brought her home?
‘I’m sure she wasn’t that bad.’
He can deal with tantrum No. 2 methinks…
Oh no! I remeber when Ian threw his first tantrum. He threw himself on the floor inside the store we were in and just went bonkers! He doesn’t have tantrums or meltdowns anymore but he throws little fits every so often but he is also autistic so there is a a reason behind those whiney fits.
I say that dad deals with tantrum #2 also ;). Love the picture of you 2 by the way. She is very precious :).
Yes I think when children have autism there are other things that bother them or make them uncomfortable so you can understand why they react that way sometimes, I have taught some teenagers with autism before. Dad didn’t have to deal with tantrum #2 either, but I managed it a LOT better! Glad you like the pic, it cracked me up when she copied me so I thought it was a good moment to take a snap! 🙂
Not a lot of people understand Ian so if he does happen to have a fit in public people just stare. It doesn’t bother me though because I’ve been dealing with it for so long. Sometimes he’s very hard to calm down and other times it’s easy peasy. Glad you were able to handle tantrum #2 better :)!
Oh dear, it’s hard when they start having tantrums. The best advice is to ignore it, hard when you are in a supermarket. I usually use distraction when out. Every child tantrums and it gets better. At home ignore and she’ll get the message. Hugs x
I know, you really think before it happens that ‘your baby’ won’t ever do ‘that’ sort of thing…haha it is such an eyeopener when they actually do it. I think when it happened again about a week later and I did ignore it, that it worked much better and she settled much sooner than when I gave her attention. She definitely hasn’t thrown as big a wobbler since. x
Ah the first is always the worst. You get fairly used to them after a while. Connor is not too bad as threatening to put him on the naughty chair now works, but he is 3.
His first trantrum (with me) was when we were walking across a field and he demanded to be carried as he didn’t want to step in the horsey poo. Poor child is a bit sensitive and I decided he needed to be toughened up, so I refused. He stopped in his tracks and would not budge. I walked on to the car (only a few feet away at this stage) and called him over, but due to the stubbornness and the tears and the wailing and nashing of teeth his little feet refused to budge. For a good few minutes this carried on, but I stayed calm. Some dog walkers came near the car on their way for a walk. They looked at me and looked at the poor little boy with tears and snot dripping down his chin. I smiled at them and said “excuse us, we are having a tantrum”, so which the lady smiled back, so I figured she understood. Connor didn’t like the look of the strangers and so he started to move towards the car, albeit reluctantly. When he got close enough I dealt with the wet face and put him in the car seat. He went on the naughty chair as soon as we got home. I haven’t yet been back to that field, but I have tried to get him more used to dirt, mud and general outdoors stuff so realises its ok.
My son Ian used to be like that! He hated to get dirty. Sometimes he still is but not very often! Good luck with him :)!