I threw a tantrum, and it wasn’t the first time. I mean, I threw a tantrum last week. And I am not proud. The tantrum and I are old pals. I have been throwing it around for a good 35 years. Just like how you throw a party.
In the 6th grade, my family went to Disneyland. On a Wednesday. It was back in the days when your parents could take you out of school for a trip to the Magic Kingdom without the threat of someone calling Child Protective Services. So, during this trip, I got a souvenir: a fabulous white shirt with Minnie Mouse on the front dressed in pink with a black hat. I love love loved it, and I couldn’t wait to wear it to school the next day because I had show and tell and I was going to show off my new shirt. A little bit of a brat? A little bit. So we get home and of course I HAD to put my shirt on and then of course got it dirty and so into the laundry it went. The next morning I head to the dryer to put on my shirt and ta-da! SHRUNK. Like 2 sizes. I LOST it completely. I screamed, I ranted, I fell to the floor clutching my favorite shirt and wailed like a baby. I blamed my mom. She tried to console me, but there is only so much you can do for an 11 year old throwing a tantrum. Warn them they have 30 minutes until it’s time to leave for school and walk away to go pack some lunches. I can still remember roaming up and down the hallway, finally throwing myself on the floor in my parents’ bedroom, pulling like a mad woman on the neck of the shirt, willing it to go back to it’s previous size. I was pissed. Really pissed. I can still recall the rage. I finally calmed down and put the shirt on. The final result was a too small shirt with a too large neck that hung and drooped. It was a mess and I never wore it again. This is sort of embarrassing, and age 11 sounds too old for a Tantrum. Ha! That’s funny.
My sister ate my most favorite piece of Halloween Candy one year, right out of my bag. We have that tantrum on video. My mother had just redone my sister’s room and was “interviewing” my little sister about the new wallpaper and throw pillows. About 3/4 of that video is me whining and carrying on in the background about my missing candy.
I’ve had other mild temper tantrums, like the time my husband and I were packing for our honeymoon, a few hours before our rehearsal dinner. I had just gotten my nails done like 15 minutes beforehand (right here, procrastinator, raising my hand) and I was attempting to zip up my suitcase with my teeth, then my palms, afraid I was going to mess up my French Manicure. I pouted and rudely asked my husband to zip it up for me, to which he asked “why can’t you?” as he stood in the closet, having not yet packed a thing. “Because I just got my nails done.” He looked at me. “Why?” as he walked over to close my suitcase. “BECAUSE WE’RE GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW!” I threw up my hands as proof. He laughed, but I was fuming. Wedding planning is super fun and stressful. 🙂
So as I have extensive experience with the Tantrum, I expected my kids to throw their fair share of Tantrum parties. And they have, and they’re pretty good, but they haven’t been quite the caliber of their mom’s, yet. I am totally jinxing myself here. But what I didn’t expect, was that I still had more tantrums in me. Mommy Tantrums.
So, last week, I finally had enough of my daughter’s messy room. She has so many things and these things were everywhere. So I grabbed the baby, took him to his sister’s messy room, and sat down with him in my lap, and attempted to help my daughter straighten up. At first she was super duper excited about Mommy helping. Things were being put away, clothes were being folded, dirty clothes went in the hamper and then 1 minute later, she started hanging upside down on the bunk bed. I got her to refocus and she started putting her clothes back in the drawers. And then, at the coaxing of her older brother, started to run out to the living room to see what Clifford the big ole red dog was up to. I reigned her back in and warned her brother. And then she’d put a shirt away, hop into the hallway, do a dance, hop back into her room, count her My Little Ponies, put another shirt away because I asked, hop back into the hallway, do another dance, run to Clifford, and then come back. So I got serious. And I sat her down and said “We are cleaning this room, and we are not leaving until we are done. No more running out the door, no more fooling around.” She nodded with a smile, stood up, did a dance, and knocked a box off of a stool onto her baby brother who had since crawled away from me and was chewing on a crayon. And then I lost it. I took away TV time I am sure, took away her ponies, took away her car when she turns 16, until THIS ROOM IS CLEANED UP! Mommy Tantrum. And she snapped out of the sillies and we got the darn thing cleaned up. Oh, and baby brother was unfazed by the box that fell on top of him. He’s fine. Third kid.
Satisfied, I walked out of her room, and found my oldest son waiting for me. He had been strangely quiet since my Mommy Tantrum. I wondered if he was trying to avoid cleaning up his mess too. But then he handed me this:
My 6 year old son, very concerned that I’d forget all of the restrictions I had imposed on his sister, made sure he wrote down all of the things I had taken away until she finished cleaning her room. He had written it on the back of a sheet of stickers. I guess he just grabbed the nearest thing to write on so as not to miss the gems spewing from his Mother’s mouth: No more gymnastics, yes I remember saying that. No more candy. That’s a definite. All of the above apparently are restricted until his sister proved she could be good. Ok, I remember that.
No more anything! ?? I don’t remember that one. Can we say, Mommy Tantrum?
RITZ
momantic comedy 
Go Maxie! Sounds like something I woulda done when I was a kid.