March 10, 2016

The Mighty Flatiron Meltdown

This is one for the ages. After a lovely stroll down 5th avenue on a gorgeous sunny winters day I was excited to take my husband to Restoration Hardware to fantasise about what our house might look like one day. The store was filled with fancy rich people, after all.. who else would be looking at giant furniture on Manhatten Island. Boston was beautifully behaved.. we'd given him a brief pep talk, he went from room to room saying.. "Look Mum and Dad's room" "This is our house" I was flattered.. When it came time to leave I knew it wouldn't be smooth. I sang him the Daniel Tiger jingle " That was fun but now it's done" which usally works a charm.. it didn't.. then we did the old .. "We're going, see you later" failed. After about 15 mins of the gentle approach, he needed to be picked up and physically removed and what followed was epic. The screams would have been heard in Harlem. Being right on a busy intersection we couldn't just let him melt and ignore it, the fear of him running onto the road was too real. We had his binky but of course he wanted the one with a dolphin on it.. he wanted everything and nothing.. everything was flying everywhere. He wanted to go back to what he wanted to be our house.. My husband carried him home kicking a screaming for 10 blocks. Legend. Even a dog dressed as a dinosaur walking by wouldn't distract him from enduring what seemed to be the worst pain ever felt by a human. It's the first time I've ever felt like a whole city's eyes were on us. The city was strangely quite and all I could hear was Boston. People were politely ignoring us then a passerby said kindly "It get's easier" I nodded and smiled. Then thought about how irritated I feel when people remind me that the terrible two's are nothing on Threenagers. Great, thank you.
When we got home and he had calmed down or more accurately worn down.. he told my husband he wanted a big house. Don't we all mate. It was a little insight into a child's mind. The irrational, wildly optimistic hilarious mind. I would gladly move into the surroundings of RH Modern.. I feel his pain. Credit to him for being so adapatable, we move around so much that he could have honestly thought that this was our new digs.

Anyway it's cathrtic for me to write this out. On days like this I always try to conjure perspective and look at the positive. Eg. On the way to Restoration Hardware I had the best hot chocolate I've ever had in my life from Shake Shack. Also if a two year old tantrum is the worst thing in my day then in the scheme of life and what's going on the the world at large I'm very lucky. No need to be overly dramatic. Although in the moment, which feels like more of the decade, things are manic, the bigger picture tells me these toddler days are numbered and I want to enjoy them. One day when my kids are grown up and at school or beyond, I know I'll wish for these days back. Or I'll develop selective amnesia like my mother, who after 4 kids only remembers one tantrum, which was of course thrown by me.

 
               
 A happier day at Flatiron