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Today featured a screaming shrieking tantrum. Upon arriving back home from dropping kids at school Gleek became very angry with me because she’d carried her shoes to the car and failed to get them onto her feet. She expected me to sit in the driveway and help her put shoes on so she could walk into the house and take them back off. I refused and herded her into the house where she disolved into a screaming shrieking tantrum. After a few minutes of listening to her kicking and screaming and shouting “I hate you!” I picked her up and put her into her room. She knows when I do this she is supposed to stay there until she is calm. Instead she went running for the door and demanding her blanket. I put the child safety doorknob on so that she couldn’t get out of her room without permission and retrieved her blanket from where she’d thrown it in the living room. I gave it to her and she hit me with it. So I shut the door on her and tried to ignore the screaming and pounding.

Howard came up from his office wondering what all the noise was about. I’m fairly certain the neighbors were wondering too, but fortunately they didn’t come and ask. I’m so glad Howard was home because we were able to exercise some tag-team parenting. When one parent is in conflict with a child, then the other parent gets to step in and be understanding. Gleek resisted Howard in that role. She was demanding that she wanted mommy, but I was feeling abused and I felt that it was important that she appologize for her behavior before I became sympathetic. I’m not sure what magic Howard worked on Gleek, but within a minute all was quiet in her room. It stayed quiet for 5 or 10 minutes at the end of which a very appologetic and teary Gleek came running to me for hugs and reassurance.

I love that Howard now has the time and sufficiently low stress levels to do this kind of thing.

One thing that I have learned in the past 9 years of parenting is the importance of ritual. Children rely on rituals to make themselves secure and happy. Unfortunately parents don’t get to choose which rituals are sacrosanct to the children, but then there are lots of parental rituals that the children don’t get to choose either, like bathing.

At our house we have the Ritual of the Oatmeal. Quaker Oats has brilliantly and deviously created a product called Dinosaur Egg oatmeal. It is like regular maple and brown sugar oatmeal which is packaged in individual size servings only it also contains a dozen or so little candy eggs. When the eggs and oatmeal are stirred with boiling water the candy shell dissolves leaving a little colored candy dinosaur. In other words the eggs “hatch” into dinosaurs. This food has been a staple at our house for more than a year and Gleek in particular has developed a special Ritual of the Oatmeal and woe betide any parent who fails to follow the ritual precisely for much screaming will follow.

The Ritual of the Oatmeal: A parent must open the bag of oatmeal then hand it to the child to dump. Link carefully sorts out all of the eggs and puts them to the side of his bowl. Gleek carefully hides all of the eggs under the oatmeal in a “nest”. Frequently Gleek needs help with this hiding process because the ritual cannot proceed with any eggs visible. Then the parent need to make clear whether or not Gleek wants her eggs to hatch because sometimes she likes to eat the dinosaurs in-the-shell. Not hatched means hot water. Hatched requires boiling water. Link always wants his eggs to hatch. Once the water has been acquired at appropriate temperatures it must be poured in exactly the correct spot. Link usually makes a hole in the middle of his oatmeal all the way down to the bare bowl. Gleek designates a point at the top of her nest of eggs. After the Pouring of the Water, parental involvement is finished. Gleek carefully stirs and picks out all the eggs eating them first before the oatmeal. Link grabs the pile of eggs off the counter and ceremoniously dumps them into the lake of boiling water in his bowl. Then he stirs and eats.

I supposed I could refuse to participate in Oatmeal Rituals. I could just dump the stuff together and say “Just eat it!” In fact on days where I’m over-tired or irritated I do just that. But there are so few things in their lives that children are really allowed to control, that it doesn’t surprise me when they create comfort rituals surrounding food. That small piece of their lives they can make exactly right. And so I participate knowing that eventually they’ll outgrow the need for dinosaurs in their oatmeal.