Meltdown

By: Allison Norris

It just happened… like, maybe an hour ago.  The biggest tantrum of my son’s life and the most “counting to ten” of mine.

Baylor and I visited our sweet friend Essie’s family’s lake house on Priest Lake in Idaho.  Essie’s son, Jonas, was born a couple of days before Baylor and the two of them met when they were but 3 weeks old in my mom’s group.  Essie and I were the only ladies to have a natural birth in the group and I remember wanting to get to know her.   She held Jonas in a wrap across her chest and appeared to have been a mother for years – it just came naturally to her.  We figured out that we were neighbors and I would strap Baylor to my chest and make the 8-block trek to her home.  She’d always feed us… and her place was usually spotless.  “No, no, no,” she’d say “my place is actually really dirty… don’t look too close!”  She is the kind of pal that makes everything sound fun… be it gardening, changing a poopy diaper, or drinking cocktails at 3pm on her patio.  So calm, so positive, and such a nice woman to be friends with.

Then they moved to Spokane.

We haven’t seen them in months, and I had some airline credit, so we hopped a jet and flew east of the mountains for a fun weekend with our friends.  Riding 4-wheelers through the wooded trails, pushing strollers up vacant streets to a hidden park in the woods, jumping on the neighbor’s trampoline, and plopping 5 million rocks off of the dock – the boys were absolutely exhausted, and so were the mamas.

We flew home ready for the week – sad to say goodbye to the gorgeous lake and to our silly friends.  Bay’s dad hadn’t seen him for almost 5 days because we were gone, so the day after our return Bay headed over to his place for two nights.  It’s summer… and it’s busy.  I think my sleepy boy had had enough with ping ponging all over the place.

I picked him up this morning… When I took him down to the football field close to our house to run around, he cried when I set him on the warm turf.

He cried when Hudson, the boy I nanny, touched the ball.

He cried when I gave the ball back to him.

He cried when I suggested he take off his shoes.

He really cried when I said it was fine if he left them on.

Sensing a trend, I told the boys it was time to go back, get a snack, and take a small rest.  We started making progress toward the gate to leave when Baylor saw the pink snack cup I had left on the step before entering the field.  Without thinking, I picked up the cup and added it to my pile of things to bring back.  Pissy-Pants told me to “put the cup down.”

“I’m bringing the cup home, Bay, now come on…”

“NO, MAMA.  Put the cup DOWWWWN!”  This was it.  The tip of the iceburg.  He had lost it.  It was all over from here.  The little pink snack cup being picked up was just way too much for my emotional basket case.

Baylor latched on to the chain link fence and refused to budge.  Juggling a soccer ball, a 16-month-old, my sweatshirt, a snack bowl, and a purple ball, I simply didn’t have the hands to remove him from the fence and carry him up the steep hill back to our house.   I ditched the balls in the bushes and charged my stubborn son.

“WE ARE GOING BACK HOME, NOW.”  I said firmly, hoping that he would sense the seriousness in my voice.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” He screamed his favorite word in a way that made people on the street stop and look down to make sure nobody was in fact dying.

Hudson started crying because Baylor was acting like a scary psychopath.

Kicking, hitting, wailing, and bawling, I picked up my almost-2-year-old and carted him up the hill under my only free arm.  The tennis camp happening directly to our left stopped and stared – oh yes, all 50 people, turned and watched as Baylor screamed his guts out.

We finally, after much manhandling, made it back into our house where Baylor proceeded to scream and scream and scream and scream a little more.

I gave him some milk, and he felt a little better.  Well, better enough to stop screaming, but not enough to kill the whimpers.

On my way back from LA a few weeks ago I sat next to a single mom of a 4-year-old on the plane.  We quickly compared stories and then started comparing notes.  We talked about “the day after” when our kiddos come back from Dad’s house.  It’s not that anything bad had happened to them while they were away from us… but when they come home, the first day is the worst.  They disrespect, can’t follow directions, melt down, and test everything like it’s new again.  It’s like he is punishing me for abandoning him or something.  My new friend on the plane said that she would cave and give her daughter whatever she wanted on that first day because she felt guilty.  It was that clear that her daughter was upset with her that she simply couldn’t make her feel any worse.  Visit after visit her daughter would push farther and farther until she said her daughter had become a little monster – almost looking forward to the day she could come back home and get whatever she wanted from her mother.  She had to enforce the rules even harder and eventually her daughter realized that she would always come back to her mom’s and that there wasn’t any abandoning happening at all.  It’s tough love at its finest, and it truly is tough.

He’s sleeping now.  Thank God.  After he regrouped a little more, he came outside and watered all of the plants with me.  Enthusiastic questions, reactions, and lots of giggles… he was back to my boy and not that crazy monster kid who stopped a tennis camp.

We watered and watered and set up the pool… and then he fell from his bike and hit his nose so hard that blood gushed everywhere and we were back to the screaming.

Part Two of July 1st better be a different story or I’m going to bonk my own face into the pavement.