Last night was supposed to be a good one for us. We wanted to go out to eat to celebrate the end of the school year and I thought it would be a good idea to go to Smashburger since we loved their burgers there. We went there on Monday for dinner and decided to go again last night. Well, I write this next part with a very heavy heart when I say that it will be the last time we go out to dinner with both kids for a very long, long, long time.
We sat to eat our burger, I gave my daughter some of my sweet potatoes, she was being pleasant, my son was drinking some milk and he was pleasant. Cut in about me about halfway done with my burger and my son starts to fuss and my husband decided to go change his diaper. So, I gave him the wipes, changing mat, and diaper and off they went to go to the men's room to get his diaper changed. My daughter who was playing with my phone at the time decided to look up just in time to see her daddy walk off with her brother and wanted to follow them. But I had her give me my phone back cause who knows what she'd do with it when I'm not watching her. By the time I look up to show her where daddy was, he was already in the bathroom and I told her just wait til daddy got back. That's when I lost my appetite because she started freaking out and melting down. She wanted to be with daddy but I couldn't exactly walk her to the bathroom with the food still on the table, the stroller there, my purse was at the table, and I just didn't want to chance walking away from the table.
She proceeded to scream and cry and I am holding onto her so she didn't bang her head on the table and talking quietly and reassuring her "daddy will be right back". But she didn't want to hear any of it. Toddler years are the worst so far and I can only hope and pray my son doesn't get this way when he turns into a toddler. Suddenly I heard my husband's voice and I was relieved and she was happy again. But my appetite for my tasty hamburger went down the drain where my husband was in the bathroom. So, I told him to put our son in the stroller and lets go home because I wasn't hungry anymore and I just felt so sad that my daughter would react this way. While she was melting down, I looked around the restaurant and saw a few kids, older than her, and thought to myself 'I hope and pray you will be good like these kids when you get older'.
As we were packing up our stuff, my husband and I apologized profusely to everyone near us about our daughter melting down. All of them told us not to worry about it and this is what kids do. But one lady in particular told us how she has three kids and all her kids are out of high school and she understands where we are coming from. Then she proceeded to give me some unsolicited advice by telling me what I was doing to my daughter was wrong and that I should have put her in time out and to just ignore her and by talking to her when she was melting down was not a good idea cause she will just get worse. Honestly, I don't care what her advice was and I didn't really appreciate her telling me how to raise my daughter. Everyone has different parenting tactics and that might have worked for her kids, but I don't do that. I don't ignore my child when she is freaking out and wanting her daddy and I definitely don't want to scold her in public and embarass her either.
I don't appreciate when people give me advice on what to do with my children. My husband and I are the ones who are raising them and I don't want to hear how their child/children do this or that. My own mother does this too. She tries to tell me how to raise my daughter and what I should do to her when she disobeys and how she doesn't need a schedule and everything else under the sun. She tries to intervene by telling me how everything I'm doing is wrong but I just try my best to not let it get to me.
In conclusion, I am really not enjoying the toddler years of a child. I never once in my wildest dreams would have thought that she would be like this when she was a baby. I thought parenting was so easy and felt blessed that she was such an easy baby. I guess I should have just waited til after the toddler years to thank my lucky stars for an easy baby.
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