Sour Patch Kid

One of my favorite advertising campaigns from the past few years was the Sour Patch Kids commercials that ended, "First they're sour, then they're sweet." Every one of those commercials cracked me up. For those that didn't ever see them or just don't remember them (highly unlikely if you are even remotely able to be amused), here are a couple examples:

Alright, I'm back....just spent the last 15 minutes watching all of these online and laughing my ass off. Anyway, getting to the point.

So these commercials cracked me up. No one could forgive someone for those acts so quickly! Hahahahaha....those silly candies.

Well, fast forward a few years and my toddler has turned into one of those candies. One minute she is the most awful, whiny, naughty kid you've ever met and the next she will say the sweetest thing to almost make you forget what happened mere minutes prior.

For instance, at swimming lessons tonight, she decided she wasn't into it....no way, no how was she getting into the water. She was throwing such a fit in the locker room just getting her suit on that once we finally came out into the pool area, some of the teachers were "discussing" our situation to figure out how to lend a hand. Once she finally calmed down and got into the pool (only 15 minutes into the 30 minute lesson), she promptly did the first exercise and then gave me a thumbs up and blew me a kiss. Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd think she was mocking me with each of those gestures, but she had the biggest, most genuine smile on her face that it doesn't seem possible that she didn't mean it.

I could literally post hundreds of situations like that, but I'll limit it to one more....which, if it is ever beaten for most embarrassing and frustrating moment of my life, I may just give up.

A month or so ago (just now has enough time passed for me to talk about it), I left work a few hours early with the express purpose of picking Lindsay up to have a Mommy/Lindsay date at the zoo. We had a great time. We took turns picking what animals to see next, shared ice cream and played on the playgrounds together. Throughout our date, I was giving Lindsay warnings about how much time was left until the zoo closed, meaning we'd have to leave. Towards the end of the day, we both agreed the penguins (near the front of the zoo) would be our last stop.

As we got to the penguins, I could tell leaving wouldn't be quite as easy as I had hoped, but that isn't terribly earth-shattering. After watching for a few minutes, I tried reasoning with her. No luck. I tried negotiating, but even the savviest negotiator wasn't cracking that shell. So, I resorted to the good, old-fashioned method of just picking her up and walking out. So there we were, pregnant mama carrying a kicking and screaming kid out of the zoo.

As luck would have it, the zoo was having some big after-hours event and there were literally hundreds of people lining up outside. As I'm wading through the crowd with a still kicking and screaming kid, I made an amateur move....I caved into her demand that "I WANT TO WALK!" I set her down and started to tell her that she could walk as long as she stopped throwing a fit when she took off running and yelling back at me, "Don't touch me! I'm afraid of you!"

Seriously. In front of at least a hundred people. I really hope none of you have ever had to feel (or ever do feel) the searing eyes of complete strangers who may or may not believe you have just been exposed as a child abuser.

I did my best to calmly wade through the people after her despite kind of hoping one of the strangers would take her home. I honestly was so stunned that I really didn't want to catch up to her, but obviously knew I had to. Once I did, I swooped her back up and carried her the rest of the way to the car without talking....just silently fuming while my child screamed bloody murder and apparently kicked at me, not in frustration, but in fear.

After getting her restrained in the car seat and getting the air conditioner running for her (see, I'm clearly not a monster), I took a few minutes to myself outside the car trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Of course, she was still screaming when I got in the car to drive home....and continued to scream until we got home and I put her in her room for timeout. WORST. DATE. EVER.

A few minutes later when I went back in (thankfully the screaming had subsided), she was laying on her bed and she looked at me and said, "Even when I'm mad at you, I love you all the time." And then gave me a big hug and kiss.

Again, seriously. Sadly, this version of my kid was not witnessed by a hundred people.

We had a long talk after that about "the incident"....and never did get to the bottom of where she'd get the notion to apply "afraid" to me, but thankfully she hasn't broken out that soul-crushing phrase again.

So while you can see this incident didn't come in a neat, packaged 15 second commercial, she clearly has the routine down. SOUR! Then sweet. It's just really too bad the sour part isn't as appealing in kids as it is in candy.