A Public Tantrum

On Saturday Elias had his first big, public tantrum.

It was not fun.

Or pretty.

Cheekwood, a beautiful museum and outdoor garden, was having its free weekend. It was 60 degrees and beautiful, so my friend Alyson and I decided to go enjoy the weather with Elias. Since he had slept until 8:30 that morning, I figured he would be fine without a morning nap.

Mistake #1. 

Since I didn’t think we would be there more than an hour, I just took the snack container, sippy with water, diapers and wipes in the bottom of the stroller. Elias had his paci and Elmo. I didn’t bother to grab an extra paci out of the diaper bag.

Mistake #2.

I wanted to get some paci free pictures, but every time I would remove Elias’s paci, kicking and crying would occur.

Fine. No cute pictures, unless you count the ones of the back of Elias’s head.

Which, I did get some of those.

Like this one.

Can you see mistake #3 coming?

What if I tell you Elias is sucking his paci in that picture?

Do you see it coming?

Elias decided it would be a good idea to take out his paci.

Mistake #3.

In doing so, he dropped it into the pond.

And there was no way of retrieving it, as it swirled around and around in the center, its goldenrod goodness taunting me as my normally sweet boy went out of control, wailing as if his life had ended.

He would not take Elmo.

He would not sit in the stroller.

He would not walk.

He barely let me carry him.

He writhed and screamed and bawled uncontrollably.

Thankfully, I guess, we hadn’t gotten too far into the garden, so we were able to make it back to our car.

Unfortunately, I had chosen to wore really cute wedges due to the great spring weather, which were not fun to walk in as I carried my squirming, royally unhappy toddler.

We got to the car, plopped that extra paci in as fast as we could, and he finally calmed down.

Three minutes later he was asleep.

Wow. 

What a joy that was.

Do you have any stories like this?

Misery loves company.