I can now officially check off another requisite of being a
mother. Last night I sent my three-year-old
to bed without supper. To be very honest,
at the beginning of the battle I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to
follow through with my original threat. However
as the battle continued, I became more and more determined to stick to my guns. After a ton of attempts to calmly reason, several
trips to “think time”, and a few spankings, the hour long combat came to an end
with a swift dump of untouched food into the trashcan.
This was followed by a complete, screaming, sobbing meltdown.
To preface, I was trying to get supper on the table a little
earlier than usually, as we go to Bible study at 6:30 on Monday evenings. I put a cup of white milk on the table in
front of Jentry’s plate. When she got to
the table, she quickly demanded chocolate milk instead. I normally would not provide her with the option
but have recently given into a small amount of chocolate syrup, as this has
proven to result in a higher intake amount.
There was a cup of already mixed chocolate milk leftover from the night
before in the fridge, so I quickly grabbed it and put it in front of her. Little did I know, this was not going to be
the quick fix in which I was hoping.
Jentry then desired the chocolate milk be placed in the cup where the
white milk was residing. As any
reasonable parent would do, I said “absolutely not” to this outrageous request. This was proceeded by the previously
mentioned screaming, sobbing meltdown.
Jentry continued to wail all the way to the church and would
periodically sob, “I’m hungry!” I was
less worried about her going hungry and more concerned about what she might say
to the caregiver at church! Would they
suspect that I was truly starving my child. Yikes! I was tempted just to turn the car around and
go back to the private confines of my home.
Then I realized that I could not allow my three-year-old to control my evening
plans and so I forged ahead.
An hour of play time in the nursery completely distracted
Jentry from the previous debacle at home.
She didn’t mention food, or should I say the lack of food, until it was
time to crawl into bed. She then said, “But
I didn’t get to eat.” When I asked her
why not, she pretended to be completely clueless. I quickly reminded her why she did not get to
eat and confirmed that it would be very wise of her to never act like that
again. She went to sleep without another
peep but with an empty tummy. I went
to sleep knowing that I had done the right thing but with an empty heart.
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