For Sale: Four-year-old

Today was a day.

Preston had to work. He had to leave at 8 a.m. He'd be back at 1 p.m. and Maddie had a birthday party to go to at 2:30 p.m. The big complication was that I still hadn't gotten the birthday party girls (twins) gifts.

So I got up early, showered, etc. and planned to head out to Target. Easy-peasy.

Maddie had other plans. Literally. She did not want to go to Target. She had a full-body, possessed-by-demons meltdown. Screaming, crying.

I gave her a choice. We could go to Target and get birthday gifts for the girls or I would call the girls' mother and tell her that Maddie couldn't attend the party.

Maddie did not like those choices. In fact, at one point in the car she shrieked "This is not my choice!" (Since she refused to choose I made the choice for her -- I decided that continuing to deal with the current tantrum would be less painful than extending the tantrum into the "No, no party for you." afternoon.)

She shrieked and yelled most of the way to Target. She did calm down, thankfully, by the time we got into the store.

Of course one consequence of all this was that it ended up being late by time we arrived back home. Luckily Preston came in and was willing to bring Maddie out to the party, leaving Sam and I to hang out.

She had a great time at the party and Sam and I had a nice afternoon (him napping, me cleaning up the house a bit then relaxing).

For those of you who thought maybe Maddie was an alien being who never behaves like a normal four-year-old. Sometimes, she does.