Poor Body Image

Tuesday mornings in the Moody household can be hard.

I have the kids ride the school bus in the afternoon every day. I drive them to school in the mornings, except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays because I have Bible Study Fellowship those mornings.

Each munchkin has their own alarm clock, which I set for them the night before the mornings they are to catch the bus. And it's usually enough to get the ball rolling in the mornings.

But yesterday, Allison hopped out of bed, turned off her alarm and jumped right back under the covers. (She gets that from her daddy!) I gave her a few minutes while I got the boys settled with breakfast, and then I went to her room to wake her up.

Everything pretty much went downhill from there.

She got out of bed, grouchy as can be, fussing under her breath. She was tired. She needed more rest.

I had kissed her goodnight the evening before at 8 p.m. The kids' alarm clocks are set for 7 a.m. She shouldn't have been tired. Unless she switched her light back on and played after being tucked in, instead of going to sleep.

Ahh, natural consequences as discipline. I love that. It takes the guess work out of parenting. So she'd go to school tired. It's not the first time; it won't be the last.

We were halfway down the stairs, her muttering, and me telling her to come downstairs to eat breakfast, when she informed me she was not hungry. We've had that fight before. I don't exactly win. If Allison says she's not hungry, she's either sick (and I'll absolutely regret forcing food into her when I see it regurgitated later) or she is stubbornly refusing to eat.

She is normally a compliant child. But sometimes meals and potty breaks bring out in her the Bruce/Tanja combination effect of sheer hard-headedness.

Fine. Another natural consequence. (I felt bad for sending her to school hungry, but the child is not going to die in one four-hour stretch before lunchtime. Not even in an 18 hour-stretch, if you consider when we had supper the night before.)

Tired and hungry, she continued to fuss. She was cold. I sent her to get dressed for school.

Oops. Too late I realized that she was going to find a pair of sweat pants she hates hanging on her closet door, ready to wear for the day.

She balked when I picked it out of her closet the night before. She said someone would make fun of her for wearing them. I assured her that they wouldn't, and if they did... I made a fist and punched my hand... and said I'd take care of it. Then I winked at her, she laughed, and I thought we were done.

But then came Tuesday morning. And those purple sweats brought out the monster in her.

By then I was back downstairs with everyone else. We heard stomping, crying, drawer slamming, screaming. It was ugly.

Judge me if you must... sometimes I spank her for that behavior. But sometimes I let her expend her energy in her room and have at it. I choose the second option if I'm already frustrated with her. It's the safest option for us both at that point.

But Bruce had had enough. When he went upstairs to brush his teeth, he popped in her room and told her she was finished with her fit... or else.

And she was finished with her fit. Sort of.

When she came downstairs, wearing the sweats, she wasn't a demon-child anymore. But she came right up to me and said, "I don't want to wear these pants."

"Sorry. You're wearing them," I said. "Today is P.E., and it's very cold outside. They're better for today than jeans."

And then she looked at me with her most pitiful expression, eyes full of angry tears, and said, "I don't like them. They make my feet look fat."

Yep. Her feet. Fat. Because of purple sweatpants.

I laughed with Bruce about it later. When she didn't know what we were talking about. (I'm not stupid. If I'd have laughed in front of her and looks could kill, I'd be dead.)

And for the record... nobody laughed at her purple sweats.