The Meltdown

Yesterday the family went to a graduation party.

When I say we went, I mean we drove an hour to get there and, if the title of this little essay hasn't given away the ending yet, we didn't get to stay very long.

You see, the party started at 2pm, which is a perfectly normal and acceptable time for a party to start.  It is also, in our family, prime nap time.  More insightful readers might see where this is going...

In our folly we thought that perhaps the kids would take a nap in the car on the way there and then be sufficiently distracted by other kids and food and family and just being out of the house that they'd forget that they were still a little tired.

No such luck.

They remained awake the entire drive there, and were actually very well behaved.  In hindsight I think it was all just a set-up for what was to come.

Once we arrived and unloaded and said our hellos, things began to go bad pretty quickly.  Suddenly all three kids were hungry, even though they'd just had lunch less than two hours ago, but the food hadn't been put out yet.

Then, showing an impressively intuitive understanding of the tenets of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," they tried to divide our forces by one wanting to do this thing over there while the other wanted to do that thing way over there.  Along the way they'd also become selectively deaf to hearing their own name, so that any time we called one, which was becoming more and more often as they began to misbehave, they mysteriously couldn't hear us.  I don't recall reading that one in "The Art of War," but it's a good trick nonetheless.

At this point things were still manageable as, really, so far this is just what life with kids is like... and there was a keg, so things weren't perhaps as bad as they sound.

Then they served the food and we thought, "Alright!  We'll get some food into their bellies and rehydrate a bit and maybe they'll calm down."

No such luck.

There was baked ziti and chicken parm and buttery dinner rolls and all manner of salads and slow-cooked meatballs and even a crock pot of melted cheese and a big bowl of chips to make nachos specifically for the kids (and the beer drinkers), but even though the kids were soooooooooooo hungry, none of it appealed to them.  Not even the nachos.

And thus we achieved "perfect storm" status: no nap, being around a lot of people, it being very humid and muggy and uncomfortable out and being hungry.  Enter: Meltdown Mode.

It wasn't the baby though, as you'd probably guess.  In the end, he was actually the best behaved of all the children.  No, it was my little princess, Kaeleigh.  She wasn't happy and she wanted EVERYONE to know it.

For about 30 of the most embarrassing moments of my life she clung desperately to me and wailed, completely inconsolably.  Any offer of something to eat or drink infuriated her.  Bringing her inside into the air conditioned house irritated her.  Taking her to the bathroom made her livid.  Holding her and swaying gently and speaking soothingly to her and lightly scratching her back caused her to literally scream.

Everyone at the party at some point was forced to pretend to ignore her as I tried moving her from place to place to get away to a more quiet area where she might maybe, just maybe, fall asleep.  Many people gave a knowing "awwww" with an exaggerated frown as I walked by with her because they were probably parents too and understood the situation.  That and they didn't have a bugle handy to play Taps on.

Eventually Mom had the idea to take her back to the car and put her in her carseat and put a movie on the DVD player and I, at my wits end by this point and desperately trying not to be that parent, thought it the most brilliant idea in the history of ever.  And it worked.

She and I sat in the car and watched the Spongebob movie for about 20 minutes and she was quiet and engaged and content and laughed at all the funny parts like she hadn't just spent a half an hour running me ragged and making a scene.

And we hadn't even been there two hours by this point.

We decided the best thing at this time would be to just go home, so we loaded back up and took the hour drive back home, arriving there just in time for a dinner we hadn't planned on being home for and so hadn't taken anything out in preparation of.

Oh, and of course all three kids fell asleep in the car on the way home, because there's literally no other way this story could have ended.



Please "like" me on facebook or I just may have to send Kaeleigh over to your house without a nap!