Grumpy Teagan
Teagan has been grumpy the past few days. It’s not that she’s not sleeping, she is. She gets at least 12 hours a night. It could be that she’s not napping, which she just refuses to do at day care.
Anyway, today, she didn’t have an accident. She asked to go to the playground as we were driving home. I had gone to pick her up as Stu was working late, so it was just me and the two girls. We had promised her a trip to the playground as a reward for not having an accident. So I took her to the smaller playground, the one with slides. She promised to listen and be good.
We get there and I get Ashlin into the stroller, then get Teagan out. And she was pretty good. She didn’t run too far ahead while I pushed Ashlin, she dropped the garbage that she picked up and wanted to throw out.
She was so excited to be able to go down the slide! The bottom had a bit of leftover rain or melted hail, which she asked me to wipe off. Then we had to check the other two slides. Yup, they both had water at the bottom too. Ok, not a big deal to swish the water off. Back to the big blue slide she runs, climbs up the ladder and down. Laughing.
After a bit, she wanted to go on the swings. Not the big girl swings but the baby ones. The one Ashlin was in last time we were there. Fine. Ashlin is staying in the stroller. I wasn’t allowed to push her though. Weird kid. Eventually she wanted to get out, so we did the wiggle, wiggle, wiggle dance to get her out of the too-small swing. The slightly wet sand under the swings was the next source of gravity, and she crouched down to grab a handful. And peed her pants.
Then denied she did it.
I probably should have taken her home right then, but she wasn’t too fussed, and I didn’t have anything to change her into, I was only on a quick day care pick up. We stayed a bit longer, hoping her pants would dry a little more before having to get her into the car.
She slowly became more and more unruly and stopped listening to me. So, I told her she could do two more slide runs and then we needed to go home. She tried to bargain for more time. Nope, well ok, one more slide down, there really wasn’t any rush to get home if she wasn’t unhappy about her wet pants.
And so we started out of the park. And she ran into the road. Thankfully it is a very quiet street, and a surprisingly seemingly unused park, so she was fine. I was lucky. She melted into tears and became a boneless mass, unhappy that at first I yelled at her, and then because I was putting her into the car.
While Teagan cried, I got Ashlin in, the stroller away, then went back to Teagan and sat in front of her, at her eye level. I asked her to stop crying and to listen to me. That she can’t go running into the road, that she needs to listen and be a good girl or she won’t get to go to playgrounds with just mommy and her sister. She did say she was sorry, and said she’d listen.
She still refused to admit she peed her pants. Fine.
I’m proud of myself that I didn’t loose it, that I was calm the entire time. The only time I yelled was when she ran into the road. Oh, and when she tried to put the straw she found in the dirt into her mouth. And when she was horsing around at the top of the slide and almost fell off. Gah. I guess I yelled a lot. I need to figure out how to get her to listen better, so we can go and do things, like go to the park alone, without difficulties. Without meltdowns.
After the girls were asleep, Stu told me that Teagan has assigned the younger guests to Ashlin’s birthday party a balloon color. G gets a blue one, E can have green, Ashlin gets red, and she gets pink. Dada is allowed to have a purple one. She thought through all the possible colors. Impressive, that our little Miss Bossy-pants is thinking ahead.
- March 10, 2012 (lisasff.wordpress.com)
- March 13, 2012 (lisasff.wordpress.com)
- March 15, 2012 (lisasff.wordpress.com)
