Just Will and myself went over to Westfield today, to look for a few things for myself (book, maybe some other stuff) and of course to look for more Cars toys for Will. It’s fun for just the two of us to go out, Dad and son style. But of course, with Will, an ever energetic, ever moody 4-year-old, it’s always trying in a sense too 🙂
I’ve found that the worst part is always trying to leave places. Unless you get him focused on the next destination, he doesn’t want to leave, immediately starts the tantrum, and usually drops to the floor and makes me carry him out while he screams. It’s not usually as bad as that sounds, and it’s not every place we go to, but it happened enough today.
The other scourge is repackaging. When he finds something he likes the look of, but doesn’t realise he already has it just because it’s been repackaged differently to before, and insists on buying it, even though I have to explain to him that we already have it. I don’t know if it’s that he doesn’t believe me, it’s more like he just gets fixated on the new thing, even though it’s not a new thing.
And all the time there it was “get Flo” — he’s been missing the Flo figure from his Cars set (and a few others), but he’s really fixated on that one. We tried every shop with no luck, and eventually he settled on Wingo, one of the bad cars. I swear I could see how he settled too — we were at Woolworths getting groceries, he knew we were going soon, so when he saw Wingo, it was “get Wingo” — he knew it was the only choice he had. Then I got home and Sallie found there were 23 pages of Cars toys on eBay. Literally everything. Of course.
But lunch was fun. In the end it was clear that Will needed lunch, so we both had Maccas of course, and Will was suddenly the most placid and happy little guy. He’s like me in this respect — mental if he goes too long without eating 🙂 He likes the look of the Kung Fu Panda Happy Meal stuff there, but I don’t think we’d be seeing that anytime soon.
Really, I had a good day with him, even if it seemed somehow just exhausting in the end, and even if it was a little trying at times. Four year olds really aren’t supposed to be perfect, and in many ways it’s all part of the process to try and encourage him to fix his behaviour when he’s not so well behaved. In the evening, he did talk about screaming at the shops, and I’d swear he seemed a bit embarressed, so maybe it’s getting through.
This is all part of the process, it’s wonderful even when it isn’t exactly 🙂