Last night we went out to dinner for some (awful) Chinese food. I was helping Lukasz eat and Tom was helping Lily. At one point he offered her a piece of broccoli on his fork, which she refused, so he ate it...
And MAN did she ever get upset. She started crying, then wailing "That's my broccoli!!" Tears everywhere...
Today at lunch, she suddenly brought it up again, "Tatus ate my broccoli" and her eyes got all teary again. I managed to distract her with some other food but then tonight...
It's a quarter to eleven and suddenly Lily starts wailing "Tatus ate my broccoli". She's not one to fake cry or fake being upset (yet) so against Tom's advice, I went in the room to try to calm her down. First, I told her there was some broccoli in the fridge just for her that she could eat tomorrow. That didn't work. So then I brought her out to the kitchen so Tom could apologize for eating her broccoli, which he did, giving her a big hug and a kiss and telling her there was broccoli for her in the fridge. She had a sip of water and seemed okay, so I put her back in bed.
But she started wailing about her broccoli again so I went back in and scrounged around in the toy bins for a piece of toy broccoli that I knew they had. Think I could find it? Of course not. Plus the rattling of toys woke Lukasz up. Lily asked me what I was looking for and I said "something that Tatus left here for Lily". That piqued her interest.
I finally found the elusive pieces of toy broccoli under Lukasz's crib and gave her both, one for her and one for her doll, Pink Jemima. She took it, but wanted a plate for it. A red one. So I found her a red plate and put the broccoli on it. I gave it to her. She looked at it, then informed me "It has to be cooked". Well, they have a toy kitchen in their bedroom so I fired that broccoli in the toy nuker and with a "beep beep beep whiiiiiiirrrr.... DING!" the broccoli was cooked. It was very hot though, I had to blow on it, which made Lily laugh. Then I gave her the nice steamy broccoli on her red plate, one piece for her and one for Pink Jemima. I acted out Pink Jemima eating her broccoli and then yawning and asking Lily if she could go to sleep. Lily said "Yes" and corrected me when I laid Pink Jemima down on the wrong pillow. Then Lily laid down on the pillow next to Pink Jemima, with the broccoli nearby. I kissed them both good night, settled Lukasz down again, walked out and shut the door.
I told Tom what I did and he said he wouldn't have had the patience to cook the broccoli or go through the charade of it all. But for me, it was about handling the upset, making sure she wasn't crying herself to sleep. And I truly believe she was genuinely upset about the broccoli - nothing else upsetting has clung to her like that. She is in the stage of saying "No" when I ask her if she wants something and then saying she does want it after I've put it away (very very frustrating)... but this seemed different.
It's been 15 minutes now and I haven't heard a peep so I guess my broccoli charade worked.
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