For every season

Yesterday because I was meant to be taking it easy, I walked into Daisy’s room and suddenly everything looked crazy and out of order and messy and exactly like a 5 year old’s bedroom should look. It just wouldn’t do. I immediately set to work on her bookcase – ordering and neatening it up until it looked like it should do – tall to smallest, and sectioned out into Dr Seuss etc – which will last approximately 3 minutes. Those 3 minutes will be mine though! Victorious!

After the bookcase she decided to get dressed which meant she put together the craziest most unmatched ensemble she could find. Each top she put on came up to her mid forearm. “No, that won’t do. Try another.” I kept saying until I realised the only option that worked was her red skivvy from her School winter uniform. Not so cool. We attacked each drawer pulling out each top and skirt and tshirt and dress that no longer fit until we had a pile that looked like this:

And no clothes left in any of her drawers. Bummer.

Having sisters and sister in laws with older kids we have had a long succession of hand me downs but as they get older, they have dried up somewhat. Fancy having to actually buy your kids clothes? Who knew? So with empty drawers from both bedrooms we headed off to Country Target for some basics.

The shopping expedition was quite disasterous. Daisy was in a mood. You know the overtired end of second School term and feeling a little sick from an impending cold 5 year old thunder mood? Yep, that one. She rolled her eyes so hard and back so far I thought I might pass out in the children’s clothing section from sheer annoyance and anger that someone I had MADE had so little respect for me. Harper was hilarious pulling pieces off that she liked (that had Dora and Princess motifs on them of course) whilst I distracted her with less feral items and quietly stashing the pink stuff away. She managed to get a few bits and pieces, Daisy managed to piss me off even further (which was saying something) at the checkout with a fight about which jumper she would wear home. When we got half way down the street and she tempted her fate with a sick mother one more time with an eye roll, an ungrateful mention about SOMETHING and I cracked. A public warning, a threat, some talking back a PUBLIC SMACK, a PUBLIC grabbing her by her ear with a crying sister behind and then a stand off tantrum about getting in the car. Had I been feeling better I would have thrown  all 25kgs of her in the car myself. It wasn’t pretty people. Bowral didn’t know what had hit it. We eventually got her in the car with not 1, or 2 but THREE pullovers on the way home where I actually got OUT of the car, around to her side before she completely shat herself and was quiet, that is until I got back into the car and drove off before the tantrum began all over again. It was something special that tantrum, all 55 minutes of it. Reminiscent of the famous Happy Fucking Fathers Day of 2009. Shudder. Needless to say I needed a lie down after it.

Her cache has been emptied from the tantrum though – don’t you find sometimes that kids just need to do it to move on? She ate lunch and then passed out for a few hours and has been a little better since. School has really taken it out of my little one…it’s been a big year. So now she has 2 jumpers, one long sleeved top AND a red skivvy to work with. She has clean drawers though. And I have storage boxes filled with clothes waiting for Harper in a few years time. And she has a neat bookcase. That’s something right?

Comments

  1. I think my 7 year old must have got eye rolling lessons from the same place as Daisy.

  2. feebeecakes says

    When do the tantrums stop – Miss 7 still manages to represent Australia at Tantrum level – I sooo completely get how you felt, and I could just about hear that Bowral tantrum from Sydney – solidarity sista!

  3. I battle clothes all week with my 4 year old. all she wants is the feral pink and purple dora and princess stuff. “why won’t you let me look pretty?” in tearful tones. add that to a few sensory issues about seams and scratchiness AND THE SLEEVES FEELING FUNNY!!!! and my god i’ve had to bite down on the shelf in her cupboard to maintain self-control.

    sometimes feral behaviour in our house co-incides with a growth spurt. its always perfect timing for a shopping trip… not!

  4. I here you. My almost 5 year old tests me regularly! And I don’t even dare buy her clothes she doesn’t like what I pick! God what will the teenage years be like?

  5. Lol… I catch my kids eye rolling me and I say something about it to them, and the little buggers always deny it…which makes me question a)my sanity b) my eyesight
    It drives me crazy…..

  6. Second term is HELL. On everyone.

  7. Glad it’s not just my 5 year old! My son threw such a good one the other morning I’m now avoiding the neighbours! As for the public tantrum- I’ve come across a bit of tut tutting and head shaking from a few old people down here and it’s just pushed me over the edge!!

  8. Hilarious and Frightening all at once.

    My baby is so wilful and gets huffy with me and he is only 1.

    Worried re the future.

  9. I hate to tell you but these tantrums don’t stop as they get older. I thought by 12 my son would have snapped out if it but nooooooooo. The only problem is now he is as tall as me & yells just as loud….god help me!!!

  10. Anonymous says

    You may roll your eyes at this but yesterday was a Full Moon. I was in fine tantrum throwing eye rolling form and I am 27. Today… back to normal.

  11. Dear GOD have we not all been there? Remember my own public smacking incident at the local putt putt golf establishment? Resplendent with the quiet yelling and dragging along by their arm to the car where I looked over to see the mum of Jasper’s best friend. Ah memories, such sweet sweet memories.

  12. Ha..I still roll my eyes at my mother!
    Living so far away usually I get away with it as she can’t see me rolling my eyes over the phone…but when we Skype I aways get busted!
    I think the eye roll must just be one of those mother daughter things!

  13. You think that is bad!!! Try a 13 yr old chucken a huge wobbly if things don’t go her way Um Hello! She now bribes me lol Not on your nelly dear child free teen to good home i quit!!!!

  14. Wait til she’s 15 with pms. This is why wine and chocolate were invented.

  15. You really do have a way with words – loved this post.

    I still remember the day my brother and I pushed our Mum’s buttons so badly that she kicked us out of the car (in the middle of nowhere, when we lived rurally) and drove off. Man did we behave in the car after that.

  16. Anonymous says

    Online shopping … i let my 5 year old loose on target online, myer online, pumpkin patch, kids got style etc on the ipad, she fills up her cart and then we go through it together and pick which ones well buy … No shops … And she feels like shes in control : )

  17. I put my 13 year old son out of the car and drove away, once when he was behaving badly. We were over 500kms from home. I should never have gone back to get him.

  18. Anonymous says

    Oh yes, I am with Jo, two daughters now in teens, it was rough at your end and rough now…I was equally as beastly, my mother is having the last laugh… I love that the three of them leave me alone to shop and have lunch in a shopping mall, ha, ha, ha, hand them over to someone I say!

  19. Anonymous says

    or keep driving…

  20. Oh those tantrums, I can honestly say, I HATE those tantrums. You poor thing, never worse than when you’re not feeling 100%… because they suck when you ARE fighting fit.
    I always think of one of your posts from ages ago, when Angus is behaving like a right goose… something along the lines of “just what does a 4 year old have to be that pissed off about!?”
    So true lady, so true.
    xo

  21. I firmly believe in Karma. You know the old “can’t wait till you have kids of your own” payback. Yep, that’s the only thing keeping me going at the moment. The thought of watching my girls deal with their own kids whilst I sit back and (not so quietly) laugh 🙂

    Bring it on!!!!

  22. I actually threw master 4 in the car mid tantrum 3 days ago! Well I tried he turned into a spider all fours on the door frame while two people made me wind down my car window to ask if HE was ok ‘yes, he is in the middle of a tanty’ geez

  23. Anonymous says

    You articulated so perfectly the thing that makes me seethe with anger when my nearly 4 yr old is giving attitude: ‘that I had made someone with so little respect for me’.
    Eliza

  24. oh god, too funny. I know, I know! I have a 4 year old diva who tonight threw such a big tantrum over dinner (the shepherd’s pie shouldn’t be in a bowl, it should be on a PLATE! I want honey on rye bread!!! Aaaarrrggghhh) that her father left and went to the pub (something I have never known him to do) so he could watch the footy in peace. She was asleep 10 minutes after he left, and he was back 10 minutes after that 🙂

  25. Ohhh, Im so glad I’m not the only one. You really lost your shit goodly. I always do. But I hate the episodes in the public spaces where the yucky bitch ladies give you THAT look like you cannot control your child, Or they murmur something quietly to their other half standing right next to them, Makes you wanna scratch their stinking eyes out and punch them in the mouth… Nice aren’t I?

  26. Funny! (although not really), I was in Bowral that day, didn’t see the show though! It was soo cold. Mx

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