meltdown Archives – The Pinterested Parent

Most mornings I have a hard time leaving the house to go to work. I love the mornings in our home, our daughter will wake up & I will hear her sweet little voice calling out to us. “Mama, Dada, I awake.” I will go into her room and see that sweet smiling face & my heart will just turn to putty. She will jump up & wrap her arms around my neck & if I have time we will spend a few minutes together before I have to run off to work. On the weekends, I am excited that I do not have to leave this lovely scene, I get to stay home & enjoy my time with my family. Today was a little different. I was hoping that it was still Friday & that it was time to go to work. No such luck. It was indeed Saturday & my daughter really was having an epic meltdown. We are not going to get into details that is for another day, but it was brutal. Things just did not seem to be going our little girl’s way & she did not quite know how to handle it. It took a bit to calm her down, but she finally started to slowly snap out of it. A meltdown like that required a little extra cheering up, so mommy made a special treat for Mai for breakfast in hopes that we would get to see our smiley girl again.

Fruity Pebbles Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup of all purpose flour

1 cup of crushed Fruity Pebbles

1 tbsp of brown sugar

2 tsp of baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 large egg

1 cup of milk

2 tbsp vegetable oil

Directions: Pour the Fruity Pebbles on a plate or a bowl & smash with a potato masher or spoon to make crumbs. Put aside. In a large mixing bowl add the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk & vegetable oil and stir well. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg & add to the rest of the batter. Stir in your Fruity Pebbles crumbs until evenly distributed. In a frying pan or griddle set to medium heat, (Test with water, water drops should dance across the surface when added. Lower or higher temp if needed) pour about 1/8 of cup for small pancakes or 1/4 cup for regular sized. When pancakes bubble, flip and cook the other side until golden brown.

It got Mai’s and Daddy’s stamp of approval & even put a smile back on my sad girl’s face. Two thumbs up, mama!

How and why does a meltdown occur? It could be that a nap was skipped that afternoon , that they are not feeling well or maybe it took too long to serve dinner that evening. Either way, there is something that already has your little one agitated.

The Trigger: This evening we served our daughter one of her suppertime favorites, cucumbers and ranch dressing. I poured some dressing on her plate. “More dressing, Mama?” I add more dressing to her plate. Then the unthinkable & tragic happened, some of the dressing… (brace yourself friends) touched the cucumbers. OH NO! Mommy you really dropped the ball with this one.

The Gibberish: “Noooooo, da ba da dr dr dreeeeeesssssing. Cucumber on the dressing. “
Me “Do you want me to wipe the dressing off the cucumber?”
“Noooooooooooooo, ab ba da Ranch … cucumber”
Me “Do you want the dressing? What’s wrong, baby? Use your words”

The Tears: Now starts a fit of screams and tears that probably only lasted for about 5 minutes, but feels like five hours. My daughter hysterically gasps for breaths while pointing at the ranch dressing.

The Reasoning: “Mai Mai, mommy will clean the dressing off the plate.” I say to my daughter as I quickly fumble to wipe away the dressing from the cucumbers. This makes her cry even more. Come sit with mommy.” I still am not sure why she is crying.

The Calm: After a few minutes of hugging, humming and rocking, our daughter starts to calm down. Daddy burps a couple of times and it makes her laugh. Aaaaahhhh! Finally a happy baby again.

The Relapse: Daddy in a moment of pure insanity, eats a cucumber. How dare he? Doesn’t he know that we can not talk, eat or breath until the meltdown has run it’s course completely. As the storm rolls in again our daughter turns and looks at me “Dada ate the cucumber!!!” “Dada!! cucumbers, Ahhhhh, Noooo Dada.”

The Switch: After a few moments she shuts off her faucet of tears and reaches for a cucumber & dips it in the dressing. “Mmmm. so goood. More Ranch dressing?”

The Confusion: ?????? What? … Honey, can you hand me the Ranch dressing?

Tag

meltdown

Fruity Pebbles Pancakes

Anatomy of a Meltdown