For reasons that I still do not quite understand, my daughter had a bad day. I have no idea what the trigger was, but from the moment she got up, everything was wrong. She couldn’t settle to watch her shows; when my parents called to talk to us – a regular weekend occurrence – she did not behave, as she normally does: rather, decided that it was time to kick her legs on the couch until my arm was a mass of bruises and the call had to be ended prematurely.
Presuming that she had an excess of energy, we decided that we needed an outing. So, we packed up the ridiculous amount of accessories that you seem to acquire when you have a child, crammed them into a bag, selected the mountain of outdoor clothing that we felt might be appropriate (but were unsure of the accuracy of the weather forecast so took apparel to deal with everything from a heatwave to a medium strength blizzard) and stuffed the pile into the boot of the car. After the obligatory debate over the yellow or blue socks, we then secured our fae into her car seat, and finally trundled off.
We left optimistically, looking forward to a nice day – our fae usually loves outings. But from the moment we arrived, she was on the wrong track. She heard the word ‘shop’ and assumed the gift shop was a supermarket. She was therefore bitterly disappointed that there was very little on sale and no trolley she could ride in. This was compounded when the cafe was not only painfully slow to serve, but had no chocolate cake. This, in our Fae’s mind, made the whole place thoroughly unacceptable. It partially redeemed itself by having a wellie-splashing puddle, but with an empty tummy, and only crisps from the survival bag, she was not appeased for long. Suggestions that we leave to find more substantial fare were rejected. Suggestions that we moved from the welly puddle were met with the same. Suggestions that as she was the only one wearing wellies and hence should go in the puddle alone were met with loud protestations.
Eventually she was convinced to leave the puddle. In the end, logic and reason having failed, she was extracted from the nature reserve visitor centre physically, as she had thrown herself on the floor and started screaming. To all those who stopped and stared at us judgementally for having a child of her age ‘tantruming’ in a public place I have only this to say to you: Fuck off. Try going on 3 hours of sleep and looking after a tired, disappointed neurodivergent child. This was supposed to be a fun trip for everybody and it turned into a disaster.
So, screw it, we left, and went to a supermarket, where she got her trolley ride and a piece of chocolate cake. Which she had for lunch, and you can piss off on judging that as well: at least she ate. She was truculent for the rest of the day, and sadly this led to her bed time being delayed, as she wasn’t even settled by her bedtime routine.
Some days it just isn’t worth getting out of bed.
Raising the Modern Fae 