A Story Worth Telling

I came across this picture on my computer and remembered that I had planned to blog about this, but overlooked it.

In the picture you'll notice that K2 looks a little worse for wear. It's because she had been crying - at the point the picture was taken she'd probably been crying hard for well over an hour.

If you're a faithful reader of my blog you may recall that K2 is not much of a whiner or tantrum maker. But what she lacks in quantity, she more than makes up for in quality. When a tantrum does come her way, I'm convinced my life would be better spent inside four padded walls.

This particular day I had taken the kids to the mall. It's always ill-advised to take both kids to the mall together - particularly since the stroller years are well behind us. I usually structure my trip around promises of a cookie and playing at Pottery Barn Kids, the jumping castle, the dinosaurs, or the outdoor sandbox. On this day I had just a couple of returns to make and I told the kids if they promised to be good while I did my returns, I would get them a cookie and we'd go play at PB Kids.

Well, things originally went according to plan so after the cookie we headed to PB Kids. We weren't in the store 2 minutes when K2 had grabbed her usual kid-size shopping cart and was filling it with all kinds of must-haves and what-nots. One of those was a kid-size phone that she was holding by the receiver and half dragging/half banging across the hard wood floor. I went to take it from her and she protested - mightily. At first I tried to explain that I was just taking it to put the receiver back in its cradle and then she could have it back, but I realized that her screaming/fighting reaction toward me did not warrant any explanation on my part. I quickly told her that if she didn't stop that instant we would leave the store. She didn't stop, and so we left.

Let me take a quick moment here to say that K1 was phenomenal during this whole thing... a typical response for the child not behaving badly. So even though he had to cut his promised play time short, he dutifully followed me out of the store. Unfortunately, I was not done with my errands - I still had to make a return at Banana Republic.

Another mother would have given up at this point, but I was determined not to let her get the best of me. K2 wasn't just a little upset about leaving the store, she was in full distraught-diva mode. Her wailing could be heard all over the mall, during our short stint at BR (because remember, I am now fully ensconsed in I-will-not-let-my-4-year-old-get-the-better-of-me mode) and through every other walkway and store we had to pass to get to our car. The mall is a good 20-25 minutes from our house, and my persistent child didn't let up once with her incredibly loud screams of indignation. Finally, as we're just about a mile away from home, a cop pulls me over. I'm sure that I'm speeding because that's usually the case, but because I was so overwraught with the incessant noise I couldn't say how fast it was.

The process of slowing down for the cop made K2 quiet down, as I pulled to a stop and watched the cop get out of the car I told K2 that now was certainly not the time to stop crying, and to keep it up - full throttle. Thankfully, she obliged. As soon as the cop came up to the window he saw K2, and pretty much assessed the situation then and there. I know I said something akin to an apology, but explained that I just wanted to get home. He looked back at K2's face and acknowledged that there was no way I could have made her just start crying - those telltale blotches gave away how long she'd been at it.

As he took my license and registration and went back to his vehicle to check up on my (thankfully!) clean driving record, K1 started to cry. I asked him what was wrong and he said "I don't want you to get arrested and go to jail!" I laughed, and said that wasn't going to happen. He kept crying and said, "I don't want my sister to go to jail!" That really cracked me up, because at that moment I thought maybe jail was the only thing that would sober her up.

Anyhow to wrap this long story, the cop came back and addressed his remarks directly to K2, telling her that for the rest of her life she needed to hold this over my head and remind me how she got me out of a ticket. As soon as we got home I pulled K2 out of the car and she just latched on to me and wouldn't let go. And that's really what she needs when she's reached that cataclysmic tantrum mode. She just needs to be held, and helped to calm down.

So I took this picture to immortalize the moment, and remember how a police officer and a potential speeding ticket helped to diffuse a frustrating situation for both me and K2. And though she may hold this over my head one day, I feel safe in saying I'll have a few things to remind her of as well :).