The Meltdown

Hello again...

How's life? 

In this post, I wanted to share with you, the moment I decided a blog would be a good idea to let out some steam and have some time to myself after a busy/tiring/exiting/wonderful day.

That moment happened this week, Monday of all days.

WARNING...this post has some honest mommy talk!

Currently my three year old toddler, Sophia, has been having more meltdowns than usual. There are various reasons that might be causing this behavior:

1. We implemented the "No pacifier during the day" rule.
2. I'm currently 7 months pregnant with her baby sister
3. She moved into her big girl bedroom, with her big girl bed.
4. She's a toddler...just that is reason enough

As you can tell, since Christmas, a lot has changed for her. The tantrums started about three weeks ago and have been getting seriously out of hand. The last one this week, just threw me over board and   tears were involved...and I don't mean my toddler's!

What happened

I was picking her up from daycare and as usual we drive home listening to some good old Adele songs (we both love her). Somehow, she wasn't having Adele on that day. She was constantly asking me to change the song or to repeat them and so on...As the good mother I am, I did as I was told, until I just got a little pissed off and told her, if she wouldn't stop it, I would turn the music off completely. She started crying(no crying from my side...yet). The car ride goes on and we arrive home shortly after.

I parked the car and got out. I took her out of the car as well and showed her the cool puzzle I had bought for her during lunch time (I wanted to cheer her up, because I could see she wasn't in a good mood). That tremendously back fired and there's where the meltdown began. 

She tells me, she doesn't like the puzzle and to leave it in the car. Of course, I know my toddler very well and know for a fact, she will ask for it as soon as we are upstairs. I decide to take the puzzle with me anyway. She starts to scream at me and tells me again to leave it in the car. I do what she says and close the car. She freaks out and asks me to open the car and get the puzzle (at this point my patience levels are starting to sink rapidly). Again, I do what she asks me and get the puzzle out. Suddenly she starts screaming and crying that she wants to stay in the car herself and I should lock her in (honestly, at this point...be my guest!!!). I don't do that (of course) and just tell her to calm down and that we need to go upstairs because it's very cold in the garage. She screams and cries even more. I start walking towards the elevator. She follows me screaming through the building (the neighbors were not amused). We get both to the elevator and I calmly ask her to press the button. She doesn't and sits on the floor instead. Due to screaming and crying she starts to pee in her pants (which I didn't notice until later on). I ask her 10 more times to please call the elevator and that we need to go home and see daddy. The tragedy continues....

At this point I completely give up and call the elevator myself. She is raging and puts herself between the open elevator door and myself. She clearly doesn't want me to get in. I manage to get in anyway but then she doesn't let the elevator door close, ha!! I'm still calm and ask her to please step into the elevator or just to step back and let me use the elevator alone. She didn't like neither of my suggestions. That's when I completely lose it. I push past her to get her jacket that was lying on floor. That's when I notice the floor is full of pee and her jacket and pants are all wet. I lose it even more and pull her by the hand into the elevator and push the 2nd floor button. While the elevator door closes, I have to LITERALLY hold her back with my entire body because, hell....the girl has some serious strength already!! While the elevator makes its way up she tries to force the door open (that was freaky). Finally, we get to our floor but now she doesn't want to get off.

Thank goodness my husband is home and opens the door as soon as he hears all the drama. As soon as she sees daddy, the meltdown is over. Daddy gives her a hug and gives her a bath right away and I just start crying my eyes out because I couldn't handle the situation. I failed completely. It's like I was so overwhelmed, it paralyzed my brain.

While crying on the couch, I start asking myself some questions:

• What did I do wrong?
• How could I have prevented this? 
• What did she need from me in that moment?

And after all the rage had evaporated this horrible sadness and remorse took over.
I realized: Where was the empathy for my child? Why didn't I just give her a hug and tell her: "I know you are tired from daycare and that you had a tough day, I understand". Maybe that would have been enough to calm her down. Instead, I let the anger grow inside me and escalate to that horrible situation. That awful feeling lingered for the entire evening and followed me to bed. Sleep didn't come easy that night...

Never a failure always a lesson

I definitely learned my lesson(s) from this. The combination of a hungry and tired toddler is lethal. She was HANGRY on that day and I did nothing to prevent her from exploding. 

Lesson number one: Have a snack in the car (how didn't I think about this before??). 

Lesson number two: Distraction is key! When she starts paying to much attention to something and gets annoyed, distract her with something else.

Lesson number three: Empathy. Acknowledge that she is having a tough time and that she is tired/hungry/angry.
Lesson number four: Stay put and stick to your word.

I would love to hear some of your stories as well and how you handled them. It's always good to have a different perspective. Let me know your "Meltdown survival story" in the comments.

Have a great Sunday and good start into the workweek tomorrow.

xoxo,
Jeny