Saturday, January 9, 2010

maggie's meltdown

This afternoon we went to a local park, Cherry Street Park. And Maggie met Maggie. An older, very sweet girl whom she instantly latched onto. She held her hand. She ran around with her. She played hide-and-seek with her. And when we left my-Maggie was d.e.v.e.s.t.a.t.ed.

She cried.

And cried.

And cried.

And cried.

You get the picture. She asked to go back to the park. She asked if Maggie could come over to play tomorrow. She kept repeating over and over again, "But, she's my friend!" She had real tears coming down her face.

We thought, "She's tired. She needs her nap. Badly." But, guess what? My-Maggie didn't nap. Instead she proceeded to become more and more of an emotional basketcase as the afternoon wore on, to the point where, at 5pm, she was asleep in her dad's arms because she'd worked herself into such a dither (crying more and sweating profusely and yes, even a little vomit).

Clearly baffled by everything, we let her sleep 15-20 minutes, then woke her up to eat dinner. But she wanted nothing to do with it. She didn't want milk. She only wanted to go to bed. So, after some medicine (she had a terrible headache), I took her to go potty. And you guessed it, another meltdown ensued about having to go potty. Crying and crying, she said she didn't want/need to go. And here is the thing: she has only gone potty twice today, this morning upon waking up and around 2pm before her would-be nap.

We'll be waking up her soon and trying to get to her go potty as she is no longer wearing Pull-Ups to bed (as of her 3rd birthday a few weeks ago, we are officially in full-time underwear).

That should be F-U-N. One UBER-crabby child: no nap, no dinner, no potty. Oh my.

And of course, 2 parents (and 2 grandparents) who are really baffled by the last few hours. A very out-of-character show of emotions from our daughter. Some days are like that though. We just press on and embrace here where she is.

4 comments:

  1. Oh MY. That sounds like quite the afternoon/evening. Poor little Mags (and poor you, too). It's hard to understand the world when you're three, I guess. And frankly, some days I feel like having a 6-hour-long meltdown, too.

    I hope tomorrow's much better!

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  2. so you know in the movies when someone's future self comes face to face w/ their present self and it messes up the time space continuum? poor mags...for all of you I pray that tomorrow will be claimed as a fresh new day!

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  3. Oh poor Mags! It sounded so sad and pitiful - on all fronts, for her and for you guys. I hope she's better in the morning. Will be interested to know if she ever can articulate what exactly the deal was (tall order for a 3 year old, but maybe?). Sounds like you guys did a good job handling it as best you could.

    xoxo

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  4. I'll tell you what the problem is...she's 3. They are unexplainable, sometimes rotten little creatures. BUT IT GETS BETTER! I promise!
    That is really sad that she got so worked up! Poor girl.

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