Best Meltdown to date!

It's been a long time since we had a really good meltdown on the walk around the pond outside our front door. Before Sam was born it was a regular occurrence, I have the battle scars to prove it - mentally at least. Tonight I had an inkling it might come up again - starting with Charlotte getting her hair tangled up in a hand fan.

It was bound to happen, hand fans should not be in the hands of children, I'm sure a random label was applied to the packaging. It all happened so quickly, she was having so much fun spraying her brother in the face and he was enjoying it too. I turned to look at a plant and looked down to find her squawking in the same high pitched squall she uses for everything showing me a bottle attached to her hair - I really wish she'd reserve a noise for actual emergencies, I'm already learning the art of tuning her out. Okay you listen to a two year old repeat "Sam Stop It" 50 times and you will learn to tune her out too. So after cutting her hair off the fan and noticing Sam covered in water, big bad mom confiscated the fan leading to much crying drama.

Seeing the rain had finally stopped, I initiated The Walk. Charlotte wanted to take her super small wooden tricycle around the lake. Not in the mood to talk her out of nonsense I agreed only to find two blocks later it was "too small" in her words so I carried it back while pushing Sam in the stroller. We collect the big tricycle and take off again. Three blocks later (1/4 of the way around the lake) she gets tired of the tricycle and refuses to drive it the remainder of the way. She's in that mood that says if we try to turnaround without completing the loop around the lake she will melt down. So we park it next to a light post and continue - quite happily!

We return home, pick up the dog so that his leash can work as a pulling device for abandoned tricycle and take off again - mom, Sam in Stroller, Charlotte and dog. It is typically for us to go around 2-3 times.

First she wants to help push the stroller, then walk the dog, then she's done walking the dog and wants to reattach the leash to the stroller but doesn't know how so she takes off with the dog.


Oh look,we've found the tricycle, it's right where we left it!


Overjoyed to be reunited with tricycle she takes off with dog's leash attached to the handle bars and promptly gets his leash stuck in the wheels. His looks says even with an adult rider this might be a bad idea. I confiscate the dog's leash and explain to a furious 2 year old why it's necessary.

Realizing I have too many objects, pets and little people to get back to the house I decide to force a volatile 2 year old into the duel stroller, hope she doesn't hit Sam and strap her down. I release the dog from his leash, use it to tie to the tricycle and pull that while pushing stroller back home. Somehow dog follows, not sure why he didn't make an escape from this crazy family while he had the chance.

Home to heaving sobs, hysterical little girl and totally clueless mom. Do I punish her? Put her in bed, timeout chair? The answer comes as I take her out of the stroller. She's heaving and apologizing for making me mad so I just sat down and cuddled her until she calmed down. Somehow I understand what it means to be irrationally upset and unable to calm down. I feel bad for my little girl. It must be so challenging to have strong opinions and be unable to convince adults to do things your way. Even with advanced communication skills it can be impossible to convince other adults to do things your way.