There was an incident tonight during bath time involving the Minnie Mouse towel. I asked, "who wants the Minnie Mouse towel tonight?" My son said he didn't so I asked his sister if she wanted it and she said yes. Then, as things go with children, my son decided the only towel he wanted in the whole world was that Minnie Mouse towel.
I explained that towel had been spoken for but that he could have the the Cars towel (that he loves) to which he said no. I asked him if he would like the Mickey Mouse towel and he declined. His sister piped up and said she wanted the Mickey Mouse towel so I asked her if she wanted to let her brother have the Minnie Mouse towel. "Yes", she said.
Okay good, now my son can have the Minnie Mouse towel, only guess what, he doesn't want it any more. You saw that coming, right? I told him he had made a choice and that next time, he could choose a different towel, but that tonight he would be using the Minnie Mouse towel. Loud protesting commences from the tub by my son.
I let him bellow while I got his sister out, dried her off and covered her with her selected towel on the bathmat so she could "hide" (as she likes to do). Explaining isn't helping, so I get the Minnie Mouse towel, grab my resisting son and pull him out of the now empty tub. Not only does he not want to be dried by the Minnie Mouse towel, he doesn't even want it touching him. He screams at me as I deliberately dry his body and hair with the towel he first insisted on having when he couldn't, and then refused to have when he could.
My son decides he's not going to take this drying off bit with the towel so tries to get back into the tub to get wet again. I explain there will be consequences if he gets back in that tub. He gets angry at the Minnie Mouse towel I've now put back on the rack and pulls it down, throwing it across the room. I explain that he will be getting that towel and putting it back on the rack before he does anything else.
Then things get worse. I lose my temper, but not my resolve. I rarely, if ever, lose my resolve. He is now in that, "red zone" state and isn't thinking clearly due to all the "injustice" being levied on him. The only thing getting through at that point is rage because he's not getting his way. The more he pushes things, the more constrained his world becomes and not surprisingly, this is frustrating the hell out of him.
Then, he did something he's never done before: he peed on the floor. Not a little bit, a whole bladder full (and he had to go). I think he was just so upset that he was being expected to clean up after his tantruming mess and get the underpants on of his choice so we could all go have dinner and play together, he just lost it. He emptied his bladder in the middle of the bathroom standing stark still and looking at me a with a strange look on his face.
Things didn't get better for either of us at that point. He now had to clean up the urine, put the soiled cloths into the clothes basket, hang up the towel he'd thrown on the floor (twice now) and finally do the only thing he was required to do from the start: select and put on underpants so that we could go get dinner and have some fun together.
And all because he didn't want the towel he wanted.
The Big Boy Update: Towel and toilet troubles (see above) was only a small part of an overall fun day. He's a good kid, he just needs some discipline. After he calmed down, we were really the best of friends again. That towel he didn't want to hang up, he not only hung up, he wanted to make sure he hung it up, "like the other towel", asking for my help to straighten it. We had a discussion about how we were both having, "strong feelings" (a Montessori phrase) and that we were glad to be feeling happy feelings again. There was hugging and then there was pizza. Oh, and then there was ice cream!
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My son and I had one of those lengthy battles of will where ultimately he loses, parenting wins out but everyone pays the price in stress during the event. During the entire time my daughter never said a thing. What she did do, at two-and-a-half, was select underpants, get her clothes off the bed and put on everything herself without me even asking.
Fitness Update: There was a long period where we were out of power from the middle of last night until mid-morning. We escaped and ran in the woods for ten miles. When we returned, power was back on.
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