I left the diaper bag at the store.
I was in self check out. I don’t even remember putting it down. But according to my AirTag, there it was, back where I left it, hanging out, like a school kid waiting to get picked up.
It was late.
Almost bedtime.
I didn’t have time to drive the twenty minutes to go get it but I also couldn’t afford to go without the AirPods I’d stuck inside it, so back we went.
Rob was dealing with an emergency so the kid came with me.
“She said she wanted to come with you, anyway,” he reassured me, as he handed her off.
That made me smile. Daddy was always her favorite. It was nice to be chosen.
I felt good, a feeling that lasted just a few seconds because as soon as he was out of sight, she started screaming.
“I don’t want to go! I want dada!”
Oh boy. Here we go.
“We gotta go babygirl,” I told her as I opened the door and buckled her in.
“Where we going?” she asked.
“The store to get the diaper bag.”
This was, apparently, the wrong answer.
“I don’t want to go to the store! I want dada!”
And the tears came pouring down.
I offered her some music, putting on her favorite Baby Shark playlist.
It only enraged her.
“No Baby Shark!” she screamed.
I turned it off. Then I put on some EDM on low volume for me. Why should we both suffer?
We drove to the store and for the first ten minutes she cried and cried, calling out to her father, screaming that she wanted to go home.
I know from my many parenting books that when kids have a tantrum, they’re not giving you a hard time, they’re having a hard time.
I remember hearing that for the first time and it shifting something in me.
When you understand a tantrum to be the result of deep, uncontrollable, desperate feelings with no where to go, it’s hard to get upset.
Instead, you just feel sorry for the kid. They’re not having fun. This isn’t what they want. This is an underdeveloped brain in action. This is torture. This is pain.
I thought about that as I heard my babygirl cry.
I thought about how frustrated she was, how she was trapped in car she didn’t want to be in, probably overtired, maybe a little hungry, and thoroughly miserable. My heart went out to her.
I wanted to save her. But I didn’t know how. I tried to talk her down but nothing worked.
Then, the screaming began.
That sharp, ear splitting scream of desperation.
It pierced my skull and rattled around inside my bones until it snapped and broke off, as she took a breath for round two.
And again, she screamed.
She’s having a hard time.
She’s having a hard time.
She’s having a hard time.
I’d tried the consoling techniques I learned from those books, where you reflect what you observe and validate their feelings. It works most of the time but, tonight, she was too far gone.
She just kept screaming.
Finally, as we got closer to the store, she started to calm down. Then she stopped crying.
I held my breath and waited.
“I’m sad,” she said softly, voice cracking.
“I know baby, I’m so sorry,” I told her.
“Ask my why I’m sad,” she said.
“Why are you sad?”
“I’m sad because I want dada. I miss him.”
“I know baby, I miss dada too. We’re going to see him really soon ok?”
“Ok,” she said.
The love of a daddy’s girl.
She melted in that moment, dissolved into sweet sugar and little girl as she sniffled and wiped her tears. She softened like butter and came back to me, able to talk again, to be held again, to be consoled.
I was relieved. The tears were over, that terrible moment had passed. She was my baby girl once again.
We got out of the car and walked through the parking lot. She was smiling. She was happy, pointing at the shapes the lines of the parking spaces made.
“That’s T! That’s L!”
“Good job baby girl!”
She giggled, proud of herself.
Then we got to the front door.
“Where we going?” She asked again.
“To the store.”
Her eyes widened. The smile disappeared. I could feel her panic building.
She remembered this isn’t what she wanted.
This wasn’t where she wanted to be.
This was all wrong.
“Nooooooooooooooo!” She cried. “I want to go home!”
And the screaming began.