Power has shifted

Something terrible happened in our house this weekend. All power that Rick & I had over Mallory & her temper tantrums is GONE.

Up until Sunday, we were able to use a baby gate (or the threat of a baby gate) to keep Mallory in her room during a temper tantrum. I know some people just turn the door handles around on the kid’s door and lock the kid in the room but I personally liked being able to still see & hear her during the tantrums, to make sure she wasn’t hurting herself or destroying her room (correction, I don’t actually LIKE being able to hear her scream but you know what I mean). I asked the pediatrician about it last week, because I felt sort of like a zookeeper using a gate to contain my kid, and she said she thought it was a good idea and agreed that it was better than shutting the door on her.

Well, after no nap on Saturday and no nap on Sunday, Mallory turned into super-terror and so we put her in her room with the gate up. Normally this works within about 10 minutes – she gets the screams and fits out and then is happy as can be. But not Sunday. I think she was super mad at me for not giving her a pacifier; usually she gets one as long as she is in her room laying in bed but we need to start weaning her paci use and for some reason, Princess Not-so-bright (that’s me) thought that day two of two-no-nap-days was a good day to start enforcing the no paci rule. I admit – I screwed up. But anyway…

First Mallory threw her bear over the gate. Then she took off her pull-up and threw that over the gate.

And when that didn’t get her the desired response, this is what happened:

She has NEVER tried to climb over this gate before. I was in SHOCK. I think I knew the day would come where the gate would be conquered but I didn’t think it would be so soon.

So we put her back in her room, and put a second gate up above the first (a double-decker gate). And then I really felt like a zookeeper (like I almost started to cry looking at her through the double-decker gate) and decided we had to move on to other tactics. Like talking. Which didn’t work so great with a sobbing toddler.

Wish me luck.