I didn't jump. I took a tiny step and there the conclusions were.

.
Bean's new word (and it's used properly almost exclusively) is "apparently". As in:

Mommy: Bean, what are you doing?
Bean: Eating my lamb, apparently.

Apparently so.

~~~***~~~

Yesterday was a long day. Just long.

The pre-5:00 wake up led to a pre-9:00 nap for both girls, with both sleeping a good 1.5-2 hours. I had promised Bean that if she napped, we could go to Chuck-A-Cheese (there's no point correcting her on the "E" part). Since she did, we did. I have like a quadrillion tokens left over from her party and other parties, so it was just the pizza cash outlay and thus a cheap date.

It started on a banner note when she freaked about the monster truck that had been, until she sat in it, her whole damn raison d'etre. Then it started, and so did the freak scene. I lifted her out, she and Miss O rode the very tame roller coaster simulator, then we ate. While we were eating, O was laughing and clapping about the bigger roller coaster simulator, so I decided to take her on it.

Cue freak scene numero dos. Bean is crying hysterically that she doesn't want us to ride it, and figuring it would abate quickly, I just told her we were and got on. O loved it. Bean stood outside the ride and cried/screamed/yelled the entire time.

The rest of our time there was better, although watching Bean and Miss O play air hockey would have made up for just about any other badness that occurred. I had O in a high chair (oh, Bean did a mini-freak about me not putting her in one) so she could at least see the table, and they both scored points by absolute accident. I wish I'd had my camera ...

Leaving Chuck-A was yet another horror scene, with Bean running away from me - at least she stayed on the sidewalk - and refusing to get in the car. I threatened to leave her, no dice. I took her beloved reindeer Clarice and what was a freak out ratcheted up to what probably looked like a full-on abduction by the time I got her in the car. She was screaming and crying, so I screamed back at her and stopped the van at a furniture store and told her she could either stop or I'd just let her out here because they had comfy beds she could take a nap in.

Not my finest moment, but she was freaking O out and my wafer-thin patience was at that point stretched to breaking. It got her to calm down enough for me to talk to her and give her logic and rationale, as well as an idea of when and how she would get Clarice back.

Like an idiot, I made another stop on the way home. And endured yet another public freak scene and this time a few judgy looks as I struggled to cope. One of the women got into some ad-magneted car advertising some granola-minded kids thing, so I'm sure she's gone back to the other granolas and told them about the awful mom at the consignment store. I keep checking (hoping) she posts to the local AP list about me, since there's always a handful of folks on there who feel it's their place to make assumptions about the quality of mothers they see in public.

When you hear a mom total demean and berate their child, tell them (in so many words) they don't like or want them, and/or really hit their kid in public, that may be an opportunity to mount your high horse and take your tiny step to your conclusions. Hell, I do it when it's painfully obvious. But parenting Bean and trying (and often failing miserably) to be a card-carrying AP momma has taught me the value of the benefit of the doubt. Now, unless I see something egregious, my first instinct with a frazzled mom and kid that's being a turd is "I wonder how long that kid has been acting like that?" I actually assume they've been rock-solid good moms all day, in the face of total turdery from their kid(s), and I just happened on the straw that broke the camel's back.

And since O's naps were all messed up yesterday, she was absolutely faklempt by the time the evening rolled around, and I was treated to no fewer than 5 of her latest Oscar-nominated meltdowns. We're talking a collapse to the floor and screams that would be more apropos were I doing some sort of torture combined with all the cats ignoring her. Meltdowns that are like black holes of communication, where there is nothing verbal that can reach her. You have to stop everything, pick her up and console her. And don't even think of putting her back down once the waterworks have shut down and she's smiling. Dinnertime, after dinner clean up, bedtime prep and Bean's story time are not at all conducive to the level of response that O requires when she's reached her zenith, so her drama queen evenings just suck.

~~~***~~~

Fortunately, today is an easy day for me. Bean has school, Dave's taking Miss O to her urologist appointment and then keeping her and Bean tonight, and I'm attending another job-related seminar about using LinkedIn to maximize job search results. And then I believe there will be a glass of wine, a hot bath and a good night's sleep in my future.
.