Tantrum

I don't really know if I want to blog about this because I'm not sure I'm fully recovered but yesterday my daughter snapped. I took her to the mall to play with our friends and we had a great time. I even forgot my phone and she pleasantly walked back to the car with me to get it. She held my hand the whole time and I kept thinking what a big girl she was and how good it was to be out with just her. We decided to eat at a more grownup place and again I was wishing I had my camera to record the sweet kids eating so nicely. I should have just called it a day and left but I had promised that I would take her to look at the Disney store. And she was behaving so well. But after 20 minutes of looking at Beauty and The Beast books and trying on Rapunzel's wig it was time to go. I gave her 2 warnings but it didn't matter. She didn't want to leave and so I had to carry her. Finally she made a run for it in Sears. I found her hiding in the closed optical center under a desk and gave her a spanking. Then the wheels really fell off. You might be thinking, "Oh Rebekah it couldn't have been that bad. It was just a 3 year old tantrum." You might have this image in your head:

But let me assure you. This was no average tantrum. I looked into Ava's eyes and they were glazed over. Here are a few highlights.

Me: Ava you need to calm down before you make this much worse for youself.

Ava: I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD! YOU ARE THE WORST MOMMY EVER!

Me: I'm sorry you feel that way. I still love you and need to make sure you don't hurt yourself.

Ava: I HATE YOU! I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE MY MOMMY ANY MORE! I'M GOING TO CUT OFF YOUR HANDS AND THROW THEM IN THE STREET!

I'm pretty sure every person in Sears was giving me a sympathetic look. And I keep eyeing the news to see if they've posted the security camera footage of the event. It was bad. I actually burst out laughing a few times because it was so crazy. I tried to stop myself knowing it would only make things worse but I couldn't help it. At one point I thought her head would start spinning around and green stuff would spew forth. Let me put a more appropriate image into your head.

She bit me, scratched my arms, spit in my face, screamed, kicked, hit, and pulled out clumps of my hair. I finally got her into the car and thanked God for child safety locks. I stood outside, called Ben for reinforcements and did some breathing and counting. It took six spankings to get her buckled in her car seat. I will never forget the look on her face, sweating, whimpering, powerless. It is so easy to see why there are so many screwed up people in the world, because parenting is so hard. I think of all the education, training, and experience I have with her age group, not to mention two amazing parents, and it is still this difficult. So just short of canceling Christmas, she has received every possible consequence and is now on day two of room confinement. I just hope that being consistent will eventually pay off and am realizing that God wants me on my knees with this girl. And a little sad that it took something this terrible to get that through my head.