Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Welcome to the Terrible Twos

The other day Hayley had her first classic encounter with the sort of scene we've all scene other parents suffer at some time: a public tantrum.

She was walking to the shop round the corner from our house with Oliver walking alongside as she pushed Lucy in the buggy. Oliver was whinging, pleading to go and sit in the car and listen to nursery rhymes. This was not really practical given that we were short on provisions including a total lack of bread and milk.

She was negotiating the busy crossroads in the middle of Heaton Moor using the pelican crossing when Oliver sat down in the middle of the road, crying, refusing to go on and shouting "in car, in car"! She had to lift him up off his bottom and pull him across the road. I'm glad to say he at least had the good sense to walk at this point and didn't have to be dragged as I first pictured when Hayley recounted this story to me.

I can't confirm precisely how many people tutted and peered down their nose at this scene. Doubtless there will have been a few.

1 comments:

Donna said...

Before I could drive, I made the mistake of going on public transport with my niece during her terrible two phrase.

I had managed to cope with most of her nonsense (including a noisy sit-down protest in the Arndale Centre for reasons still unknown) but she got her own back on the bus! She waited until I rang the bell for our stop, then wriggled away from me and wedged herself under the seat in front. I had to drag her out by her feet... it had been raining, she was filthy, and burst into tears on cue as I hauled her out. She was very cute and blonde, so the vote was split between "Brat!" and "Poor poppet". So I can't judge anyone! Thank God she's 23 now and over the worst of it :)

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