Epic Tantrums

More on the darling daughter front:

Anna turns 3 in one week.  This is so hard for me to believe.  She's funny, she's smart, she's gorgeous (of course I'm biased).

She's also strong-willed, opinionated, and determined.  These are all traits which will serve her quite well later in life...if I let her make it until later in life.  ;)

Last week was the most wonderful, perfect week.  Anna and I were both relaxed and happy and just in sync.  This week...UGH!  Anna has been clingy, needy, and demanding!  If I'm honest, I think she may be fighting a mild virus, but I'm about to go insane.  She won't let Hans help with anything, and any challenge is met with screaming and ugly faces.  And then there was yesterday.

Yesterday morning went fairly well.  She was a little fussy, but we had a play date scheduled with a friend and she was excited, so that moved her along nicely.  The time with her friend went beautifully, so no complaints there.  When she woke up after nap her mood was fine.  We didn't really have anything planned or anywhere to be, but I did have to get to the grocery store, so I asked her if she wanted to leave right away or if she wanted to wait for Daddy to come home.  She wanted to wait, so we played in the play room for a bit.  She was happy.

The melt down started about 5 seconds after we arrived at the store.  First, she wanted a little cart.  That store didn't have a little cart.  I told her if she could find one she could push it.  She stopped crying for a few minutes and looked around, and when she couldn't find one she started screaming.  I picked her up and carried her into the store while Hans grabbed a cart.  I then distracted her by asking her to find certain items.  This was a fun little chore because she wanted to grab about 15 of each item, and we really don't need 15 onions or 15 potatoes.  When I tried to place some back on the shelf she would scream.  I was trying to keep my cool, so I'd just distract her and sneak the items back to the shelf.  By now, though, I was nearing the end of my rope.  Of course, Kroger didn't have half of what we needed in stock.  What type of grocery store doesn't have bananas, cucumbers, or half & half?  So, I was frustrated with the store for not being well stocked.

After the produce section, Anna really wanted to push the big cart.  This is normally fine, as she's just tall enough to reach the push bar, but this cart was a little wonky, and kept wanting to veer to one side or the other.  And Anna kept running into things.  In an attempt to not break stuff, I would steer the front of cart, which prompted Anna to scream in her banshee voice, "NO!  You Don't Touch!"  By this point I'd had it.  I mean, I'd kept my cool.  I was trying to keep things fun.  But it's really unacceptable for her to yell at me like that.  So, I warned her that if she yelled at Mommy and Daddy like that again we would leave the store.  No sooner had I finished that sentence than did she yell, "NOOOOOO!!!  I STAY!!! GO AWAY!!!" and shoved my hand off the cart again.  I told Hans to pay for what was already in the cart, and I scooped up Anna and carried her back to the car.  She was screaming, "Daddy!  I want Daddy!" and I'm fairly certain some people may have been concerned that I was abducting a child, but we made it to the car where I somehow got her in the car seat.

After that we had to get the dogs from the kennel, and I figured she'd settle down on the ride over there.  She screamed for 15 minutes, "I want to PAY!" meaning she wanted to go back to the grocery store and play at the check out.  I got the dogs and came back to the car to my still-screaming child.  Hans then reminded me I needed a new library card, and the library was 2 blocks away, so I decided to make a quick stop.  Anna cried all through the 5 minutes I was inside (keep in mind Hans was still with her).

I got back in the car and said, "OK, time to go home" and I was met with, "NOOOOO!  I want to go somewhere!  Please!  I want to go somewhere with you!  NOOOOO! I don't want to go home!  I want to go that way."  She would alternate between sniffling softly and utter screams.  By the time we reached home an hour had passed and she was still screaming.

When we got in the house, I tried to calm her a little and Hans put up groceries.  It was at that point she started screaming, "I want to try me!  I want to try me!"  I thought I was may misunderstanding her, so I tried to ask her if she meant something else, but she only answered in the affirmative when I asked if she wanted to "Try you."  I'm still not certain what she was trying to say, but she eventually ran into the kitchen and picked up the onion we had purchased.  I tried to convince her that she did not want to try raw onion, but she wasn't having it.  She wanted to try it, and she didn't want green beans, and she didn't want tomato (it was actually potato).  I finally pulled out some of the cut onion we had in the fridge and asked her if she wanted to try that.  She grabbed a handful of onion and shoved it in her mouth, while I prepared myself for a fresh round of tears.

Can I just say now, that my child is weird!?  She LOVED the onion!  After she had tasted her handful, she got this huge smile on her face and took a few more handfuls.  I asked if she liked it, and she said, "Yeah!"  Now, maybe she was just trying to prove a point, and if that's the case I'm terrified for when she's 13, but things were fine the rest of the evening.  She ate her beans and potato (although no chicken), and she danced to Simon and Garfunkel, and she went to bed fairly easily.

I'm not quite sure what happened last night, but I do know I sat through 1.5 hours of screaming and I went to bed utterly exhausted.  Please don't let this be what the rest of year 3 will be like!