REVELATIONS AND REVELRY

Do you know how long it takes to leave the house with a toddler when you’re in a rush? I do – 45 minutes for a routine that should take ten minutes at most. Up – dressed – teeth – breakfast collected for the car (lazy I know but it’s either that or add another hour to the leaving house endeavour) – shoes on – leave house. But oh no, that would be unreasonable and so here’s the complete list of things that she screamed about this morning:

• She screamed because her bunnies were on the floor and not on the bed whilst I got her dressed. Presumably she was under the impression that she was never going to see them again. Ever.
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• She screamed because I wouldn’t let her wear a lacy party dress to creche. Which meant that fighting a wriggling cat in a bag into simple leggings and a top took five times as long as it should.
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• She screamed because she threw her bunnies down the stairs – when we were two stairs from the bottom and approx. half a foot away from them (see again the conviction that there would be no more bunnies. Ever).
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• She screamed because she wanted an Oreo for breakfast (not given). Then threw her breakfast oat bar on the floor.
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• She screamed because she didn’t want her breakfast oat bar on the floor.
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• She simultaneously screamed for and then rejected her water. Multiple times.
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• She screamed because I wouldn’t let her wear her Peppa Pig wellington boots (in hindsight this was a battle I could have just given into but I was in full ‘battle mode’ by then).
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• She had a tantrum on the ground in the car park for some undisclosed (on her part) reason. Because it was a car park I couldn’t just walk away as per the usual approach to a tantrum so some insistent arm pulling upwards went on which I sincerely hope nobody saw because you’d think I was stealing her.
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• She screamed because I wouldn’t let her carry her far too heavy rucksack through David Lloyd.
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• She screamed until I picked her up and carried her. And she’s getting too heavy really for me to carry her any distance.

And as a grand finale to all this she screamed when she had to go into creche. For anyone wondering, she is not ill, she was perfectly happy in the car. I know – happiness! A blue crack in the storm clouds. She was sunny when I refused a biscuit for breakfast in the car. She happily cuddled her bunnies, ate her oat bar and smiled away. And then the toddler tantrums began only when she presumably thought she might have some sort of an audience.

And then I simply handed her over at creche, despite the screaming, and said “Byeeee!” as I headed off for brunch and coffee. Which I promptly spilled all over my work notes. Consequently, for a moment there it was me who was perilously close to screaming.