May 2, 2012

Crying Baby in Public

As I mentioned earlier on, I have two girls with their very own character and temper. No one is perfect and I am not comparing who is better than the other. I praise for Clarisse's disciplined sleeping schedule, and I praise for her enthusiasm towards new activities. This part of the blog I must praise Chloe for her understanding of acceptance and accommodating to parents' request. Hahaha... What I am trying to implicate is that Chloe listens to our "commands" most of the time whereas Clarisse is totally out of our control. She is "a little" strongheaded and SOMETIMES NOT listen to what we told her to do. 

Yesterday's incident is a very good example of how our Princess Clarisse displayed her domineering side of her. This scene may seem so familiar to every parents, and definitely annoying to those who cannot stand screaming kids in the restaurant/public.

We were having dinner in a restaurant, it was a public holiday, the restaurant was crowded. Food was served slow. I am pretty sure that Darling Clarisse was already hungry and bored waiting on her highchair. She started to make lots of noise and SUPER CLINGY to MaMa. PaPa volunteered to bring her out for a walk, but she refused and insisted to stick to MaMa. She didn't want to sit on the highchair and she wanted me to hold her. The moment I moved her back to the highchair, she started to howl (**REALLY SHARP AND LOUD!**). I wanted to do Timeout for Clarisse and place her at the corner of the restaurant which is just right besides our table. But it didn't work, she cried louder. I had no choice, and complied to her request which I had to hold her tightly as she wanted. It was a public, MaMa couldn't let her cry for even seconds longer as I could feel stares from all corners of the restaurant. Some with gentle smiles, some with angry frowns. To an extent that even My FIL couldn't take her nonsense and walked out of the restaurant, and insisted that I should just accommodate to her request to stop her from crying in the public. 

Well, it was no big deal. What I needed to do to calm her down was just let her CLUNG to me for as long as she wanted throughout the dinner. At that moment, honestly I was a quite tired and sleepy too, MaMa didn't feel like answering to her but didn't want to get all the unpleasant stares, MaMa started to lose control and throw an anger stares at her with a "slightly" louder pitch, "STOP IT". I felt really bad instantly, I thought I shouldn't had raised my voice. She is just my little baby after all. The problem lies in me! I need a superhigh EQ to handle the situation. The worse part was my "loudness" did not make Clarisse feels better, she actually cried even louder in a "sharper" pitch. Gosh~~~! MaMa completely lost the battle in LOUDNESS. Clarisse's the CHAMPION of the night and MaMa is totally defeated. White Flag.

If it was Chloe, the scenario would be much cleaner, something like that -Chloe cries, MaMa stares (option of PaPa brings walk walk), Chloe stops crying and MaMa happy!

I actually bought a book on how to control crying children and had a good read on it. However, I don't think I can apply these tricks in the public. How not to attend to the crying babies in public. We will be hated by everyone, and I think is very inconsiderate to leave baby crying in the public and distract others' dinner or whatever that they are doing. Definitely, there is no way for me to leave the restaurant instantly as I am not ALONE. I cannot interrupt the whole family's dinner time and tell them that I want to bring Clarisse home at that minute. What should I do? I cannot do all these as per advised in the book and yet I was told not to oblige to their tantrum as it results a spoilt brat?! Geezzz..

Parenting is such difficult task. I salute all stay-home MOMMIES. You gals are the best! I am only dealing my kids 2 days in a week but you gals have to deal with babies' tantrum for 7 days a week. Hahahaha... :P 

Well, to end this blog. I must say that our dinner ended JOYFULLY as a family with a *slight* hiccups. Not an issue at all. Clarisse enjoyed her brown rice, bitter-gourd soup, stir-fried lotus, Tofu braised with carrot. After a satisfying meal, Clarisse was back to her usual cheerful self. After dinner, Yeh Yeh  (my FIL) even bought her a Hello Kitty plush toy. :P to reward her for being a good time during the actual MEALTIME, and reminded her that her tantrum before mealtime was not pleasant. I am not sure whether she understands it or not, but I guess we just need to try again and again and one day I am sure they will know what we are trying to convey to them. 

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