Put Your Shoes On

There are times when I am at my limit with all this parenting stuff.  It's challenging when I'm having a hard week and Teagan is having a hard week, too.

Just wait until she's a teenager and our menstrual cycles sync up.  Jeff and Zach might need to stay at a friend's house that week.

Yesterday morning, Teagan woke up in a mood.

And decided, as part of her mood, that she was incapable of putting on her socks.  You know, the same socks she wears all the time.

As we went through the morning routine, Jeff and I each gave her several reminders to get socks and shoes on because we needed to get out the door.

It didn't happen.  At one point, as we are nearing the "out the door" part of the morning, I went out to start the car and put my stuff in the car.  I came back in to find her face down, plank position, on the carpet.  Without any socks or shoes on.

So I told her that I was taking her backpack and coat to the car and that she needed to have her socks and shoes on when I came back in - or she wouldn't like what Mommy did next.

I went out.  I even dawdled.  I came back in.  1 sock on, refusing to put on the other.

I gave her a count down... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

And I picked her up and hauled her shoeless self out to the car.  She's yelling and crying on the way.  I told her that if she's lucky, Daddy might be feeling generous enough to bring her shoes out to the car for her.  And he did.  But he brought the pair she didn't want.  Which was fine because it was the perfect reason to explain to her that she would have another chance at picking her own shoes the next day.

And here's where I get frustrated but also love my child's personality.

She's yelling and crying and pitching this fit in the backseat (being a rule follower at heart, she did buckle herself into the car without me even asking).  But before the car was at the end of the street, she was quiet.  Calm.  In control.

She can't let people at school see that side of her.

My frustration with it is that it means we get the brunt of those emotions.  My worry is that she holds in emotions until the explode.  But what I love is that it clearly demonstrates to me that this is her personality, she is in control, it isn't something out of her control.

And this morning?

She had shoes and sock on before I even got out of bed.