"No trucks, no cars, no diggers."

For the past week or so, I have witnessed some very powerful, very LONG, perplexing, frustrating, agonizing and heartbreaking tantrums. Wow---so this is what a 2 1/2 year-old tantrum is all about. I'm not sure if the full moon was partly at fault, but *something* has taken over my child---my lovely, spirited child.

To help prevent just such a tantrum I had "the talk" with Kingsley the other day before going to Rite-Aid. I have bought Kingsley at least one toy car from this store in the past. Well, last time I refused. Oh how my boy cried---not a tantrum, just outright bawling, like someone stole his puppy. He cried through the rest of our shopping, through check-out, and all the way home.

I had to go to Rite Aid again the other day and was dreading a repeat of this scene (or even worse, a full-blown tantrum). So, I sat Kingsley down and told him---"We have to go to the store. They have lots of cool cars at this store. But we cannot get a car today---no trucks, no cars, no diggers, OK? We can't get a car every time we go to the store. You just got a cool digger yesterday (grocery store/hardware store), so we cannot get another car or digger today, OK? (Side note---I am really, REALLY trying to stop adding the "OK?" at the end of my statements---especially when things are clearly NOT OK to/for kiddo). I repeated this a few times before we ventured out.

It seemed to work. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Kingsley recognized this store as a place he had gotten a coloring book in the past and said "Coloring book--trucks?"---to which I replied, "Yes, let's get a coloring book with trucks!"---hoping it would distract from any cars. We passed the lovely display of cars and Kingsley did get very excited. When I said 'no', tears started welling-up in his eyes, but I just reminded him of our talk and tried to distract him with a new coloring book. He said NO to all the coloring books, so I picked one for him---one with trucks and tractors---telling him that we talked about getting a coloring book with trucks and this looked like a good one, so I was going to get it. And that's it---he was fine the rest of the outing.

I put him to bed the other night and we reviewed our day. I told him that we had to go to the grocery store the next day and he replied (half asleep), "No trucks, no cars, no diggers." Now he says this every time we have to go shopping. Cute---and effective (but, I'm sure I'll cave and get him a new car or truck every once in a while---just not every time!).