A different kind of post for me....

I write this post tonight with a heavy heart. I (we) have recently been challenged by our first born. Emily has always been a very energetic little girl, with a lot to say and not much of an attention span. ( A lot like her mom). We expected the sassy mouth and the independence to develop at some point… and it has. What I didn’t expect was the emotion that would come with that sass and independence. It’s hard for me to understand how her little mind works; it’s hard for me to know what’s an act and what she is really feeling.

In addition to this little attitude that has developed she has also developed an issue with her clothing. Examples: sleeve length, the seam on her socks, the way tights feel, how her shoes fit, wearing mittens. Each day the list of dislikes grows and each morning getting dressed becomes more challenging. I am of the opinion that she can have a choice in some matters, however, if you want to go to dance you must wear tights, on Christmas you are wearing dress shoes and in the winter we wear gloves. These are not choices for my four year old- they are the rules- period!

Emily has dance on Wednesday nights. I pick her up from daycare and we head straight to class. Last Wednesday we got to dance and put on our tap shoes. (The same shoes we’ve been wearing without a problem since September.) Immediately she started to complain about how her heel felt in the shoes. I went through my normal mom business of explaining why we have to wear tap shoes for tap class etc. In the blink of an eye, she immediately turned into someone else’s four year old! She threw herself on the ground in the (SMALL) waiting area, crying, kicking me, and I believe she even spit at me. I began to sweat! I was like, what are you doing??? She has NEVER and I mean NEVER acted this way, not even when she was two. I quickly pulled her into the bathroom and pretty much threatened her entire existence. After much embarrassment I caved and let her wear her ballet slippers for tap. After class we sat at the dinner table with Dave and talked about how unacceptable this behavior was and that it could never happen again. After dinner she was sent to bed without her beloved blanket.

Her sassy mouth and overall behavior did improve greatly for the remainder of the week and through the weekend.

Tonight I pick her up from daycare and we proceed to change into a new leotard and tights. I bought a new leotard to prevent the sleeve issue we’d been having with the other 3 that we own AND a new pair of tights that were a little longer to avoid that issue as well. Just as I pulled the tights up she went into the same tirade that we had the week before. Only this time in front of all the daycare families that were picking up their children. This one lasted a little longer and all I kept thinking through the entire tirade was, this is not the Emily I know. How can my Emily be so angry and so upset over wearing tights? It took the entire ride home to get her to settle down and I drove right past the dance studio. I was upset, she was upset and dance was the last place I was going to take her. Again, we sat with Dave and talked about the behavior and sent her to bed without the blanket at the early hour of 6:30.

Mothers… what advice do you have for me? Do I pull her out of dance because the clothing issue has become more of an issue than dance class itself? Or, is that giving in to her behavior? Am I over reacting? Have any of your girls/boys had issues with certain items of clothing and how did you handle it?

I can not seem to find an explanation for her drastic change in behavior and it’s concerning me. It breaks my heart to see her so angry. I don’t care if you read this blog and I don’t even know you, if you have advice or thoughts I welcome them! I know I have readers and stalkers because the ticker keeps growing. Please leave me a comment =)