Growing Pains

JB has been suffering from growing pains these last few weeks. Not the joint aching, painful muscle cramping sort of growing pains. Those would be easy to manage. No, these are the boundary defining, personality creating growing pains in which she challenges each and every one of our decisions and tests the limits of our resolve.

This afternoon, she was escorted to her room for refusing to stop bickering after an increasingly dramatic argument in which Charles and I calmly maintained that she was not going to have a slice of pie just because she wanted one, that lunch had recently been served but she'd elected to eat only half of it before declaring that she was stuffed and cleared her plate.

JB began a temper tantrum so outlandish that it was hard to resist picking up a video camera to capture the flailing arms and kicking feet of our six year old. Yet we resisted, and she was deposited into her room until she’d worked out her frustrations.

At one point, she was banging on her door with her little fists until she could be heard saying, "Owe. That hurt." A few moments passed and thus began the chant. "Out, out, out! Let me out now!

"LET ME OUT NOW! If you don't let me out by the count of three, I AM GOING TO SCREAM! ARE YOU READY!? ONE… TWO… THREE…" And with that she began screaming at the top of her lungs. To be honest, it reminded me of the sound of a Piccolo Pete firework, only without the endurance. When she ran out of breath and a moment of silence passed, she’d began the chant anew followed by the countdown and scream.

BW set up camp outside her door and talked to her between screams. “JB, you can come out as soon as you settle down. They really aren’t being mean, they just want you to eat healthy, and not be a princess.“

And then she’d start the chant. BW turned the page of his magazine, shook his head and calmly said “*Sigh*…yeah, you aren’t getting out of there any time soon. Come-on JB, you can do it. Really, let’s go play outside, it’s boring in here.”

After an hour, he’d given up and retreated to the Lego Village in the rec room, and JB after working out her frustrations by creating her self portrait (pictured above), came downstairs, sought a long comforting hug and explained why she was upset ending with “I’m sorry I was a princess and not a lady.”

She stepped back, looked up to me with her dark green eyes and asked, “Can I have a slice of pie?”