Yesterday the police showed up on my doorstep and here is why…
I picked up my 3 1/2 year old daughter Madison from preschool yesterday with my mom because my husband had a dentist appointment. I did not have my car, so my mom picked me up from work and then together we directly went to pick up my daughter from preschool. She had a good day at school, but she was ready to go home and have her routine afternoon snack and relax after her productive day.
My mom dropped us off at my house and Madison and I walked to the front door. My mom drove away. Madison and I approach the front door and I unlocked it, but oops, my husband forgot to take the chain off the front door because he left the house through our garage. So I told Madison lets unlock the gate to the backyard and see if the sliding glass door is open. We went to the backyard, but the sliding glass door was also locked.
Madison had her Play-Doh set up on the table in the backyard with several other toys out there too. She also has a playhouse and a slide, so I told her to stay in the backyard and play and that I was going to go to our front door and see if I could knock the chain off from the outside somehow. Madison said okay.
I went to the front and started trying to knock the chain off the door from the outside, but I couldn’t do it. After about 2 minutes I heard crying from the backyard. I yelled to Madison, “Are you okay?” Then I ran to the back when she said, “Mama, don’t leave me.” I said to her, “Sweetie, I’m not going to leave you here by yourself. Mama just thought you could play, while I tried to unlock the door in the front.” Then I picked her up, gave her a kiss and told her to just stay with me in the front while I tried to unlock the door. She said okay and we went to the front door together.
After several more unsuccessful tries of trying to knock the chain off the door, I finally resigned myself to the fact that I just couldn’t do it. So Madison and I went back to our backyard, while I figured out what to do. I called my husband, but knew he wouldn’t answer because he was stuck in a dentist chair at that point. However, I just thought I would give it a try. No luck. That’s when the tears began with Madison.
She started crying and saying, “Mama, I don’t want to be locked out of the house forever.” I explained to her that it wouldn’t be forever and that daddy would be home in a while. However, she quickly became inconsolable and her tears went from mere crying to a full blown melt down of epic proportion. She started screaming, “I don’t want to be locked out,” and that’s when it hit me I had a tired and hungry 3 1/2 year old on my hands. So I turned to her and said, “Madison, I’m going to call grandma and we can go to her house and wait for daddy there. You can have a snack and watch Disney Jr. while we wait for him.” My mom only lives 5 minutes away, so I thought this would help calm her down, but I was way wrong. The situation quickly went from bad to worse.
Madison became hysterical, “I don’t want to be locked out of my house forever!” I thought, “Oh my gosh! Does she really think we are going to be locked out forever?” At that point I had an irrational toddler on my hands. In her tantrum or child-rage, she knocked down a few folding chairs we had in the back yard, knocked over her tricycle, and her art easel too, all while she was screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My sweet child had been taken over by the devil, at least that’s what it felt like at that moment. I got down to her eye level and tried to calm her down and then reprimand her, but you can’t reprimand a hysterical child. I got back up to call my mom during this tantrum and that’s when Madison hit me from behind. I took her hand, got back down to her eye level and sternly scolded her for her behavior. I told her to go sit down on a time out to calm down. Instead she continued to scream and cry.
I called my mom and told her, please pick us up, we are locked out of the house and Madison is having a complete meltdown. My mom said she was on her way. From the beginning of Madison’s meltdown to my mom’s arrival time, probably about 15 minutes of screaming and crying had passed. However, by the time my mom got to our house, I had somehow managed to get Madison somewhat calmed down. However, that’s when my mom pulled out a juice box and some candycorn for Madison. That’s when I had to step in and say, “Sorry mom, she can have the juice box, but she can not have the candy corn because she was not behaving.” I then turned to Madison and said, “You can have the juice box and then when we get to grandma’s I will make you a healthy snack while we wait for daddy.” That’s when meltdown # 2 began. She started screaming and crying over the candy corn. I explained to her why she could not have it and pointed out the mess she had made in the backyard and how she had hit me. At that point, my mom told her that she needed to pick up the mess she had made during her tantrum. Madison proceeded to pick it all up and she apologized to me.
At that point I believe that Madison thought she could have the candy corn if she just picked up the mess and apologized, but I told her that she still could not have it. The tears started again. That’s when my mom said, “Let me see if I can knock the chain off the door.” I told her I had tried, but that to see if she could do it. My mom was able to knock off the chain and we were finally able to get into the house. As soon as our front door swung open, Madison stopped crying immediately. A huge smile came over her face and she said, “Grandma unlocked the door. We’re not locked out anymore.”
I told Madison to go sit on the potty, wash up, and then I would make her a snack. That’s when she remembered the candy corn and started to cry hysterically again. My mom felt so bad for her she didn’t want to go, but I told my mom to just go back home and I would get her calmed down. After my mom left, there was about 5 more minutes of hysterics from Madison. I was at my wits’ end at this point. For those of you who don’t know, I am pregnant, so I too was tired and hungry, and couldn’t take the irrationality of a 3 year old much longer. Now I don’t spank, and I don’t believe in spanking either, but at that moment I thought to myself, “I just want to smack this kid.” Now I know that may sound appalling to some of you parents out there, but that was my honest emotion at that point.
No worries, Madison was not smacked. I took a deep breath and asked the Lord above to grant me patience. That’s when Madison stopped crying and said, “I have a good idea mama, how about I have some cheese and crackers for a snack and not candy corn.” I told her that was a very good idea and then I thanked God. Madison went to the potty, we washed her hands, and I got her snack ready. She sat down at her table and quietly began to eat her snack. I thought to myself, thank goodness for this peace and quiet-Finally!
Cue the doorbell.
Ding-Dong! My dog Monty starts barking and Madison begins whining because she hates when he barks like that, “Well that was short-lived,” I thought. I approach the door when I see two police officers standing there. I was still coming down from being so upset over Madison’s behavior, so now this! I opened the door and there was a male and female officer standing there. The male officer asked if the dog was friendly and I said yes. Then he said, “Ma’am, we got a report of a screaming child coming from this house and we wanted to make sure everything is okay?”
Cue the screaming child who is no longer screaming…,
“Mama,” Madison said as she walked to the front door. “Is this the sprinkler repair man?” The female officer chuckled and said, “No we’re not here to fix your sprinklers.” Madison satisfied with the answer, walked away. I then cut-in with my explanation of what happened that day. Then the female officer asked me, “Does this screaming happen often?” My response to that was, “Well I have a 3 year old, so it does tend to happen from time to time.” The the female officer asked, “Was she screaming last night too?” I said, “No,” kind of confused by why she asked this. Looking back at it now, I realize that my next door neighbor also has a 3 year old, that must have been their screaming child that night.
Anyhow, the female officer shook her head as if she completely understood. She then said, “Well, it sounds like you had a tired and hungry 3 year old who was knocked out of her routine and just had a major tantrum.” I said, “Yep, pretty much.” That’s when the officers thanked me and left.
When I closed the door I was livid! I couldn’t believe what had just happened. My hormonal pregnancy tears took over. I then wiped my tears away and went over to Madison because I wanted her to understand the seriousness of the situation that had just occurred. I looked at her in the eyes and said, “Madison, that was the police and they came to our door because of how loud you were screaming in the backyard.”
Here comes my Epic Mom Fail moment….
“You can’t scream like that because if the police have to come again, they’re going to take mommy away, and you don’t want them to take mommy away, do you?”
I know this was a terrible thing to say to my 3 1/2 year old, but I swear I was going to lose it and I didn’t want the police showing up at my door ever again. Madison shook her head no that she didn’t want them to take me away. I told her to go finish her snack, I put on Disney Jr., then I went upstairs and had my own private meltdown. I was balling my eyes out.
Later on after everything calmed down, I explained to Madison that the police officers were not going to take me away and that I was just upset when I said that. Hours later when it was Madison’s bedtime, I read her routine bedtime story. After the story was over she said to me, “Mama, I’m sorry I had a tantrum today, I just didn’t want to be locked out.” I thanked Madison for her apology and explained to her again that it is okay to feel angry, but that it’s not okay to scream and hit. She agreed. I gave her a kiss goodnight and I told her that I love her. She said, “I love you too mama.”
Leave a Reply