Bursting at the Seams

Power Struggle.

I usually think Ruby's fashion ambition is pretty cute (see above). Well, not today. Getting ready for church this morning turned into a real power struggle between the two of us. I bought Ruby a cute new fall dress since all of her dresses are too short, apparently, Ruby is growing like a weed in the height department. I also had a pair of black sunday shoes (thanks Jasmine and Astrid) waiting to be worn in Ruby's drawer. The perfect match for her dress, but deep down I had a feeling she wouldn't go for it. So, I sneakily distracted her while I put the shoes on her. She immediately noticed and a complete meltdown quickly ensued when I told her she needed to wear those shoes to church. She began crying (more like sobbing), with big alligator tears, hands and knees on the floor, and then started saying

"I wan wear crocs....I wan wear crocs" through her sobs.

I kept saying, "Ruby, can you please wear these shoes, they look so cute with your dress?" I was not going to give up!

This is when Hugh enters the scene and gently asks me, "What is really going on here? Why does she have to wear those shoes?"

I began to defend myself and told him because they matched her dress and her crocs didn't. As the words came out of my mouth I realized I needed to give it up. For some strange reason I almost started to cry, was it because I wasn't going to get my way? I don't know. (I had just got home from a night shift, so I was pretty tired.)

At this point, Ruby was still rolling and crying on the ground, and now she wanted to take her dress off and said she did not want to go to church. So, here's the two of us, throwing tantrums because we weren't getting our way.

Hugh reasoned that since we forced the dress on her (she didn't want to wear that to begin with) we could at least let her chose her footwear. But at this point, Ruby didn't really care about her crocs either. She was crying at Hugh's feet while saying, "I don wan go to church." We were finally able to get her crocs on and she stopped crying and we left for church (ten minutes late.) And Ruby had a very nice time in nursery.

After all this I realized that this power struggle between the two of us is probably the first of many more to come. I need to stop and make sure the things I'm going to fight for are really worth fighting for. Does it really matter that my 2 year old's shoes don't match her Sunday dress? Probably not.