Sugar meets child
Devon was what Walt would call "feisty" when she got back from Kaaren's today; our speculation is that she might have gotten a bit too much juice and was freaked out with sugar. Or perhaps I should more accurately that we were freaked out; she was probably loving what looked suspiciously like a sugar high to us. Devon is living a, perhaps not ascetic, but moderate hippie meets Luddites lifestyle with us. We don't do any juice at all and really try to moderate the sugar (we have not, for instance, introduced any flavored yogurt -- it's plain or nothing in this house), so when she gets it, she's really hyper. Tonight was such a night.
By the time I had gotten home from work, the apartment was torn apart: books all over the place, she had managed to grab a box of dry pasta out of the pantry which was now paving the kitchen floor and just general chaos. And by the time I had picked up at least some of the stuff and we got dinner out, there was a true screaming fit when I tried to take off her jacket before eating. Now usually she has an attachment to one specific jacket -- Walt calls it the "wizard jacket," or The Wiz for short (it has this pointy hood on it that's a bit like KKK meets Gandolf at a Dead concert) -- and she never wants to take it off. It's a bit like a security blanket to her. So when she's wearing The Wiz, I have to cajole and wheedle her out of it, and sometimes I have to resort to brute force just to get her out of it (the brute force method is always accompanied by high-pitched screaming, kicking and tears). Walt and I have to hide The Wiz when it's time to wash it (or similar), otherwise she'll refuse to put on any other jacket. But tonight was one of the other second-rate jackets, and she made an incredible fuss. I actually had to resort to brute force, a first for anything except The Wiz. So suffice it to say that she was extra keyed-up tonight and we had a lot more crying than normal in the house.
The one saving grace of all of this was reading. Usually that will focus her attention and get her to calm down. Our friends Jim and Cass gave us this set of "block books" -- basically 26 little books that have one alphabet letter each and about 3-4 pages with one picture and one word. At first she was kind of ho-hum about these and really liked the standard baby books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, etc. But within the last couple of months she's totally turned her attention to these block books and just loves them. Between dumping them out of their box and having us read them to her, they're a sure-fire way to break her out of a tantrum. It's the current secret weapon in the Hansen-Szalva household.
By the time I had gotten home from work, the apartment was torn apart: books all over the place, she had managed to grab a box of dry pasta out of the pantry which was now paving the kitchen floor and just general chaos. And by the time I had picked up at least some of the stuff and we got dinner out, there was a true screaming fit when I tried to take off her jacket before eating. Now usually she has an attachment to one specific jacket -- Walt calls it the "wizard jacket," or The Wiz for short (it has this pointy hood on it that's a bit like KKK meets Gandolf at a Dead concert) -- and she never wants to take it off. It's a bit like a security blanket to her. So when she's wearing The Wiz, I have to cajole and wheedle her out of it, and sometimes I have to resort to brute force just to get her out of it (the brute force method is always accompanied by high-pitched screaming, kicking and tears). Walt and I have to hide The Wiz when it's time to wash it (or similar), otherwise she'll refuse to put on any other jacket. But tonight was one of the other second-rate jackets, and she made an incredible fuss. I actually had to resort to brute force, a first for anything except The Wiz. So suffice it to say that she was extra keyed-up tonight and we had a lot more crying than normal in the house.
The one saving grace of all of this was reading. Usually that will focus her attention and get her to calm down. Our friends Jim and Cass gave us this set of "block books" -- basically 26 little books that have one alphabet letter each and about 3-4 pages with one picture and one word. At first she was kind of ho-hum about these and really liked the standard baby books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, etc. But within the last couple of months she's totally turned her attention to these block books and just loves them. Between dumping them out of their box and having us read them to her, they're a sure-fire way to break her out of a tantrum. It's the current secret weapon in the Hansen-Szalva household.
posted by Devon Szalva at
10:15 PM
1 Comments:
I'm so impressed you have limited sugar in this way. I have held the line very well on TV, but sugar, in the form of yogurt (we mix 1/2 plain with 1/2 fruit) and juice boxes has been harder to avoid.
Glad that the block books have finally come in handy!
By
Jim Sailer, at 9:20 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home