A loving note to my daughters...

If your sister is crying, it's not okay for you to join her!

We met Stef and her girls, L and M, at Party City to shop for party supplies, of course. We decided on Curious George since there will be lots of little boys and girls at the party. Anyway, I took the opportunity to try out my new stroller for the first time. I won't be doing that again anytime soon by myself! Taking a 3 month old out of the sanctuary that is her infant seat when we live in the Windy City is absolutely absurd! At least it is in the winter. Anyway, that trip went really well. We bought all the Curious George necessities, and I also picked up some Strawberry Shortcake plates, napkins, etc. for Elsie's family birthday party at the end of February. When we finished there, we decided to go to McDonald's for lunch and let the girls play. So, we ate while the girls played and all went well as Claira fell asleep soon after we got there. After about an hour, we gathered the girls to actually eat (how dare we!) and Claira woke up about ten minutes later so I told Elsie it was time to go. She promptly throws a nice little hissyfit that continues as I put her shoes and coat on, fasten Claira into her carseat, and we make the walk to the car. As I'm putting them both in the car, Claira joins Elsie, as she's growing more hungry by the second, I'm sure. So, I got to listen to two crying girls the whole 7 minute ride home. That seven minutes seemed like seventy!

Seriously though, Elsie doesn't typically throw temper tantrums at home. If/when she does, we ignore them and she gets over it rather quickly. For example, if she asks for something and I tell her to put her toys away, she might fuss and say she doesn't want to so I'll just ignore her until she's done fussing. When she is, I remind her to pick up her toys and then she'll get whatever it is that she wanted. That seems to work just fine. However, when we're out in public and getting ready to leave (something she really hates) I can't ignore the fact that she needs her shoes, coat, gloves on and needs to hold my hand and walk with me and do all of those things she's throwing the temper tantrum about anyway. Advice welcome!