It’s almost time for dinner. Little Petey is strapped into his booster seat, crying. Not an “I’m hurt” or “I need help” cry. Just an “I’m irritated and have had enough and don’t know what to do with all these feelings” sort of cry.
“Pete won’t stop crying!” Poppy calls out. As if it weren’t obvious from my macaroni-stirring vantage point. “Petey, stop crying right now!”
“No,” he wails, multi-syllabically. Unconsoling meets inconsolable.
It is a well–documented fact that we’ve had a hard time getting Poppy to eat fruits and vegetables. Here are a few things we’ve tried:
That last one was yesterday, the day after we’d come to a Bad Place, digestively speaking. So now I’m trying to appeal to her intellectual side rather than to her taste buds. I printed off the Level One lesson plans and a large, colorful copy of the food pyramid from the USDA’s no-defunct food pyramid site. (The new food site is Choose My Plate.”) We talked about the food groups yesterday, and we started filling out what’s basically a little food journal for kids, so she can see that she’s eating nothing but peanut butter.
I think part of Poppy’s problem — aside from stubbornness — is sensory. She’s always had a problem dealing with loud noises, and I’ve wondered whether it’s the textures that she can’t get past. With that in mind, last night I bought a few jars of baby food. This morning I made her an apple-blueberry smoothie with it. We called it the “Blue Meanie” milkshake; tomorrow, we’ll try a peach “Yellow Submarine.” (I’m sure she’d reject the tiny seeds in the “Strawberry Fields,” and she doesn’t know the song anyway.)
And here’s the thing: She drank it with zero fuss.
Obviously, I still haven’t figured out just works for us in this department. But my 4-year-old is ingesting fruit this morning. I’ll take it.
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After a bit of wish-washiness on whether or not she wanted to do tae kwon do, Poppy finally decided she’d rather take dance lessons. (I think the meeting with the rather intimidating tae kwon do instructor sealed that one.) So we signed her up for a ballet-tap combo class.
The first meeting was supposed to be a few weeks ago, but the blizzard pushed it back to this weekend. As in two days ago, on Saturday. I’ve had it on my calendar for weeks.
“P. Dance. 11am.”
We were excited, and she was excited and everyone was just so excited. She was wearing the cute little tights and the sweet little leotard with the floaty pink skirt and she twirled and leapt and my camera was in my purse and this was going to be a great day, and we were off.
Rockford and Pete had an 11 o’clock meeting to get to, so he dropped Poppy and I off at the dance place about 15 minutes early. But then I began to get a feeling that Something Wasn’t Right. I frequently get that sort of feeling on the first day of a new thing, though — that “I have made a mistake, we’re supposed to be in another building at another time on another day” feeling — so I put it out of my mind for a few minutes. Then I grabbed the brochure and looked through it, and there it was.
Beginner Ballet/Tap. Saturdays. 10:15-11:00am.
My heart sunk. I don’t know how I’d managed to confuse the start time and the end time for her class, but I’d done it. And then I had to break her sweet little heart by telling her, “Mommy messed up, dear. Maybe next week.”
She fell apart, and I tried to hold it together. I carried her out of the building, and we walked up the street together for about half a mile. The wails turned to whimpers after a quarter-mile or so, and we almost achieved a smile when we got to Bojangles and had a milk and a biscuit.
She was fine after that, but I spent the majority of Saturday feeling like a major heel. I know that she’ll forget about this one eventually, but I worry that this is systemic. That there will be plenty more such occasions to remember. This, even though I bought myself a planner for Christmas. I’m making a real effort to be more organized. I’ve been writing down all of our appointments on a calendar instead of on scraps of paper, even. And this is what it gets me. A morning of tears and fast-food biscuits.
Let’s look on the bright side, though. It is highly unlikely that I’ll get the time wrong for this particular appointment again.