It was pretty smooth sailing getting there. Today was the first time I didn't walk up Pine (or Pike.. I think it's Pine) and go to the 5th Ave and circle the block and find a city ambassador in a yellow jacket to point me in the direction of BB&B. I took a right out of the elevator and went straight to 3rd Avenue. It's the small things that make me happy. Like going the right direction to a store I've been to a million times.
As I was pulling the bag with the duvet cover out from under the stroller I remembered I forgot something: the receipt. Fortunately, I made the purchase with a debit card so the clerk was able to find the transaction and give me a refund; in cash because I bought it two days ago. Unfortunately he only had $5 bills. Even with the 20% off coupon I used and it already being on sale it was a lot of $5 bills that he gave me.
On our way back toward the transit tunnel we stopped to listen to the Out to Lunch band perform. It was a fun rock/ska band. I don't remember their name. People were generally enjoying the music. Swaying a bit, bopping their heads... and then there was this dude who brought new meaning to the afternoon music lunch series namesake:
Did he hear the band, go home and get his colorful scarves and come back to dance? Or did he already have them and had the good fortune of being at the right place at the right time?
Gavin did not like the band. He did not enjoy it when I took him out to "dance". (Yes, the quotation marks are necessary any time I reference myself and dancing). Since the G was not enjoying the impromptu concert and dancing session my mommy radar went off: a meltdown will ensue if food is not proffered soon.
Some Starbucks carry a kid friendly snack box. It has cheese, crackers, raisins, and some sort of teddy graham cracker. Both Starbucks I stopped at did not so at the second place I found some mostly nutritious food items and we sat outside on 5th Ave to enjoy the "air" (in city, on street - the air can only be so fresh). When I offered him milk he screamed.
Oh boy. If that's how things were going to start...
After he had a few crackers the milk was suddenly welcome. Sandwich, yogurt, crackers, milk. Good stuff. Theo had some milk. We had lots of people staring and saying, "how cute."
I thought, "Uh huh. Just you wait."
It started on the way back to the train. Gavin was walking. He let go of my hand. Not cool. Crowded city sidewalks are not the place to test boundaries with this mama. I told him if he let go one more time he was going back in the stroller.
He decided to let go as we were crossing 4th Avenue. It was a very sad choice on his part. I took his hand and made our way to the sidewalk so I could safely wrangle him into the stroller. Of course he went limp so I was pushing the stroller out of the street and trying to not completely drag Gavin. It's not like I had a lot of choice. The middle of the street is probably the worst possible place to throw a tantrum.
Safely on the sidewalk I locked the brakes and began the wrestling match. *ding* *ding*
In this corner we have Cranky Pants Gavin! and in this corner we have Fed Up Mama! *ding* *ding*
As I was trying to put Gavin in his seat and he was arching his back and screaming I realized it must look like I'm the worst mom in the world. A man smiled as he must have heard me say, "Yes, this is sad. You chose to let go of Mama's hand in the middle of the street so now you have to ride in the stroller."
The crying on the train was my fault. As I was maneuvering the stroller to be as least obtrusive as possible I squished Gavin's arm against a bar. Oops. I apologized and kissed it but he was tired so mommy kisses are no where near as effective. A not so helpful stranger piped up about how Gavin must be tired. I know he was trying to be nice but I'm the one who gave him a boo boo so I didn't like anyone putting the blame on Gavin. I said, "Yes, he's tired, but I did hurt his arm when parking the stroller."
He kept talking to us. Almost until we got home. He wasn't that bad; I just was feeling awful because I was the source of my son's pain. And I got to do it in front of a bunch of people.
Round two of the meltdown started brewing when Gavin wanted to get out of his stroller. In hopes of staving off a battle in the train I started in with the bribes.
"Stay in your seat and you can push the button on the elevator when we get off the train," I said.
He stayed. I don't think it was so much that he could push the button but that he couldn't get out of the straps.
Once we were off the train and we were near the elevators I let Gavin out and told him he could go push a button. But there was a problem with that.
Some jerk already pushed the button. I mean, really! How dare a complete stranger think he had any right to push the elevator button when unbeknownst to him a grumpy toddler was making his way to push the beloved elevator button. The nerve!
When we arrived the doors were opening. I tried to tell Gavin to stay back and we would get the next one but he couldn't hear me above his indignant screaming. So we boarded the elevator.
"Go push the button, honey. The one with the start next to the 'P'", I said somewhat hopefully. He made his way to the front of the massive elevator and in front of a passenger and his bike to push the already lit up button. He pushed it a fraction of a second before we started to ascend.
"Just in time," said the bike owner (aka the jerk, Mr. Happy Button Pusher himself). He must have known that if Gavin thought he was not the one to command the elevator to go up it would have led to another meltdown.
I smiled at Mr. Jerk and nodded, "Whew." It really was a close call.
But never fear the next meltdown was not far away.
Once at the top Gavin sensed our fun trip was over. The only thing left to do was to go home, get a clean diaper and take a nap. Even though I didn't say, "nap" or "diaper" he is a smart cookie. He knew.
In an effort to stave off the inevitable and to give him a bit more fun before we went home to the house of horror where little boys must take naps and are forced to wear clean diapers I handed him my Orca card to let him tap it to complete our fare transaction.
"Go tap it," I said, pointing to the Orca card tapping station thingy.
He swiped the card from my hand and tapped it. Correctly. The first time. I was very impressed.
The machine made it's boop sound which confirmed all went well. As I congratulated Gavin on doing a good job he must have heard something differently with the boop.
To him "boop" meant: "It's over, kid. Time to have your mom take you out of your own filth and put a clean diaper on you. Then you will have to lay down and close your eyes! Bwahahaha ! BWAHAHAHA!"
Oh, I failed to mention exiting the elevator. We had another scene similar to that on 4th Ave when he let go of my hand. This time he let go of my hand as we were exiting the elevator. Not wanting the stroller with the diaper bag - which had house keys, car keys and wallet to go careening into the busy street - or even just stay up there without me - while we went back to the train level - so I grabbed Gavin's hand and exited the elevator. As we were leaving (me holding on to a screaming toddler by the hand as he went limp) a childless duo entered. They looked at Gavin with big sympathetic eyes. They looked at me with much less sympathy in their eyes. One might even say they looked at me with a big dose of criticism.
Fortunately for everyone I was too engaged trying to drag my son to a safe place to give them the stink eye in return. Besides, giving them the stink eye would have only served to reinforce their erroneous belief that I was being a monstrosity.
It was time to once again stuff my beloved first born into the stroller since he didn't want to walk home. He just stood there when I offered him his two choices, "You can hold my hand and walk or you can ride in the stroller. Which would you like to do?"
In the Love and Logic series that preaches the virtues of offering choices they make it sound like your kid will choose one of the options. Ha! Gavin likes to refuse both options or to give us a third option, which, we of course, rarely find to be an acceptable alternative to what we are offering.
The screaming continued as we strolled home. This time the pace was not so leisurely as I wanted the screaming to be over.
I took a short, very short, video of the tail end of his meltdown. It in no way represents the fullness of what he can do. I'm always posting the cute happy photos - which I love to do - but for your viewing pleasure I'm showing you the 5 second clip I took when we got home.
He and his brother are now resting peacefully in their respective cribs. I had two coffees today so I don't need a nap. The silence in the house is heavenly.
2 comments:
Oh April, painful!!
-Heidi
I like your new blog look - so nice!
Never thought about letting kids press the elevator button - now if there's a kid around I'll be thinking about it! But boy there are some rude people in Seattle - sorry you had to experience more than one in the same day!
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