01 July 2014

Help me, fellow mommies!

 The last couple of days have been a complete nightmare. Keira was sick over the weekend and as a result watched way too much TV. We know better because too much TV always has behavioral consequences, but when she's sick and just wants to watch Little Einsteins and we can't take her outside or anything, what else are we gonna do? Thanks to the fever on Sunday and state law that says she can't go back to daycare until she's without a fever for 24 hours, we had to scramble to make arrangements on Monday, because our family vacation starts on Thursday of this week and I have an epic amount of work to do before then.

My sister-in-law, who's recently sold her business and isn't yet working, graciously offered to come babysit. Unfortunately, Keira was a total beast to her and Michael had to come home from work at lunchtime, because I couldn't get away from my work. She was able to go back to daycare today and apparently she behaved fine while she was there, but from the moment she came home tonight it was wall-to-wall meltdowns.

She melted down about sitting down to dinner.

She melted down when Daddy asked her to put her toys away after her bath.

She melted down when Mommy took away her Sofia book in response to some unspecified other meltdown.

She melted down about nothing at all.

She smacked Mommy in the face and then sat in time-out, refusing to say "sorry," for fifty minutes. FIFTY. She kept trying to charm me into letting her out without her actually having said the word, because she's the most stubborn child who ever lived.

She had the mother of all meltdowns because Mommy said she had to say her prayers.

We had a couple of days of this a couple of months ago. We cut off the TV altogether and started saying her prayers before bed and her behavior turned around on a dime. But she hasn't had any TV since the fever died down, and we never, ever skip prayers. So now I'm out of solutions. We're big on follow-through so it's not that she doesn't know we're serious. But I -- and my pregnancy hormones, let's not forget that -- cannot take another day of this behavior.

So chime in. Let's hear your no-fail, can't-miss solution for absolutely miserable toddler behavior. Pleeeeeeeease?

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