Rice, Beans, and meltdowns

The picture above lasted for about 5 minutes. I try setting a minimal amount of rules during activities. I want Elowyn to be able to explore. So we started with one rule. Keep the beans and rice on the blanket. It went well for awhile, she really enjoyed filling up the bucket and dumping it out again. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Right up until Emelia had an explosive diaper situation. Do I dare walk away from Elowyn to change the babies diaper? Do I take Elowyn with me, which will almost 100% turn into a battle? I went with option one. I was pretty proud of myself. Giving up even an ounce of control over any situation is hard for me, so this was a win in my book. Well…one rule quickly turned into two rules when I walked back in the room to a shower of beans and rice. As the rice rained down on me I found myself wondering why this was once a wedding tradition. It is neither an exciting or comfortable experience to have rice pelted at you. Rule number two…don’t throw the beans and rice. No seriously stop throwing the beans and rice. Rule number three… if you throw it you have to help clean it up.

Rule number three is dumb and caused a bigger mess. Wasn’t there only supposed to be one rule? How did we end up with three? Clearly we need to move on from rice and beans. So move on we did right into the meltdown. “Give it back!” This is Elowyn’s new favorite phrase. I have used “can you give it back please?” when she takes something from her cousins, which somehow translated to her screaming “give it back” at me. So here I am sweeping up beans and rice from my living room all the way back to the bedrooms as a tiny toddler runs after me screaming “give it back!” That part lasted a lot longer than 5 minutes.