This afternoon we all trooped off to one of the several events throughout the year at the primary school two of our girls attend. Well troop is somewhat of anexaggeration, given the tantrum I had to deal with en-route.
It started 15 minutes before we were due to leave the house. Our youngest was told to go upstairs and get changed (she had been at a school church service earlier in the daywearing her uniform). I caught site of her a few minutes later running around in her underwear, clutching a balloon. Minus one balloon, she was sent up to her bedroom to get changed. Her older sister arrived at the foot of the stairs soon afterwards, playing her usual role as the whistle blower. “She’s not getting changed Dad, are you going to tell her off?” (she was obviously hoping we might)I marched up, and discovered little miss 4 sat in the middle of her bedroom floor amid screwed up school clothes in her underwear, bum in the air, face in her hands. “Get dressed”“Mmmmm” (you have to imagine this as a firm, noisy, protesting kind of noise)”GET DRESSED RIGHT NOW” She then starts to pretend to cry, because I am shouting at her. I of course realise at this point that she is winningshe has my attention, and the hysterics are finely judged to keep me there for the rest of the performance. I turn and walk away. You never heard such screams.
Of course W becomes involved now, and marches upstairs to sooth her (in reality she was as annoyed as me, but a change of grown-up usually works). She succeeds in getting her to put clothes on, which is more than I had achieved. W left for the school (where she would be working on a stall for the afternoon), and I set about making sure our girls had shoes, hair brushed, and half sensible clothes. All went well on the walk towards schoolright up to the point where little miss destruction decided to derail herself again. Apparently the path was too bumpy, we were on the wrong side of the road, and we were going the wrong way. This built up from nothing over the coarse of about twenty yards into stamping, screaming, and writhing around. I stopped her in the path, made her face me and asked “What is wrong?”Shrug.”We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong.”Shrug.
I took an executive decision at that point, and hoisted her into the air. She spent the rest of the walk to school (about a quarter of a mile) sniffing loudly into my ear, her head resting on my shoulder. This is what the first couple of weeks of school does to a four year old. She is so tired, as my grandfather once memorably remarked “she doesn’t know if she’s having a shit or a haircut”. Of course we arrived at school with a happy, smiling little girl who hugged her Dad’s leg while waiting for a hotdog, said hello to her teacher with a beaming smile, and ran herself ragged with her friends on the school field.