Crossing the Line

Janae has been known to cross a line or two in her time.

She is not afraid to cross the line when it comes to fashion,

 

safety,

 

or even appropriate play with Star Wars action figures (evident in this sighting of Qui-Gon Jinn hanging out in Janae's vanity).

 

Lately, though, my spunky almost four-year-old has been crossing the line when it comes to acceptable behavior in public, resulting in some pretty tense moments for her mother.

For example, the other day I had to interrupt one of Janae's activities to run an errand that had to be done right away (no, not returning library books . . .). Janae, who--as we all know--likes to dress up, was sporting shorts, tights and sandles.

I thought about asking her to change, but then thought I'd avoid a fight by just having her switch her sandles for boots. When Janae refused, I once again thought, "Not worth a fight," and opened the door to get her and Alaina into the van.

As soon as Alaina was strapped in, Janae started to say, "I WANT TO PUT ON MY BOOTS!!!"

Not wanting to take Alaina back into the house, I said, "Janae, we're only going out for a few minutes; don't worry about boots."

The entire 10 minutes we spent in the car, Janae full-out screamed "BOOTS!! BOOTS!!"

It moved from annoying to alarming to infuriating.

Finally, we got to our destination. Since Janae had flung her sandles somewhere in the van, I got out the stroller, opened the door, and tried to encourage her to get in (okay . . . maybe "encourage" isn't quite the right word here).

It kind of just went downhill from there.

Janae screamed and thrashed around in the stroller while everybody stared. Looking on the bright side, though, I didn't have a hard time tuning out the hysterical wailing for boots on the way home because by that time I was competely numb to it.

The next day ("always fresh with no mistakes in it," right?), I worked really hard to keep Janae calm, happy, and busy. She helped me cook, folded laundry, and played with Alaina. Everything seemed okay.

 

Then when we went to pick up Benjamin, Janae asked if she could say hello to one of the teachers. I said that would be fine and occupied myself with trying to keep Alaina from throwing off both of her boots into a mud puddle.

The next thing I knew, the teacher Janae had wanted to speak to was speaking to her in a very stern way. What had my daughter--the one who'd been on her best behavior all day--said? Something not very nice.



It has occurred to me, now, that Janae really is trying to discover where the line is . . . not necessarily in an attempt NOT to cross it, although hopefully that will be her objective eventually.

Since the events I've described, she and I have had several "talks," and I think we have made a little progress. Sometimes it is pretty discouraging, though.

This week I will be registering my little line-crosser for preschool. It will be the same school that Benjamin attended, so they will have some idea what is coming (from interacting with Janae in the waiting area, not from teaching Ben).

I guess we could just say that she's got a lot of character.

Still, I think I have a bit of work to do before September. . . .