This is the way I go out of the house. Nice, right?

This morning was not my finest as a parent. Not by a long shot.

Big Girl had her first public school costume parade. Little Girl had her first nursery school Halloween party. It should have been a fun morning. Instead, there was yelling and panic and angst.

Big Girl is dressing up like the storybook character Madeline. With her long, curly red hair and porcelain skin she’s a perfect double for the little French chick. She got up and wanted to get dressed. I had to pick what she was going to wear under the costume first, I explained. And then all hell broke loose. She didn’t WANT to wear anything under the costume! I was going to make her look stupid and ugly. The leggings I picked HURT when they were rolled up! I was so mean!

Meanwhile, in another room we have Little Girl. I took a break from the craziness in Big Girl’s room to remind Little Girl that she’s going to school — to a party! And she starts crying and telling me that she doesn’t WANT to go to SCHOOL. She wants to stay with MOMMY! She’s crying and losing her mind now. Me, I’m still wearing the nasty gray sweats and tank top I wore to bed. Glasses still on. Hair wild. So now I am running from one room to the next getting more and more agitated.

First I try staying calm. Then, when Big Girl gets louder and more obnoxious (and the cleaning lady arrives) I start feeling my usual Friday morning guilt about having a cleaning person to begin with. And now she’s got to hear my two spoiled kids yelling at me. And then Big Girl just gets louder. That I am SO MEAN. I’m stupid. She doesn’t HAVE to wear leggings. Where did I put her socks? WHY does she have to make her bed? She’s pushing all my buttons. All of them. And now I am losing it, too. I know I need to get out of there so I throw on my contact lenses, toss on the black sweatshirt I wore yesterday, and pull my hair back in a tight pony to control the frizz.

I barely get both of them out of the house (along with cookies for Little Girl’s party and the huge fruit salad for Big Girl’s party that I made). Little Girl refuses to wear her costume because, you see, she’s STAYING HOME WITH MOMMY! WHAAAAA. And Big Girl, who is now late for school, is telling me that she wants to know where the freaking Sqwishland toy that I gave her went. (Digression: Doing a big Sqwishland give away next week.) Because she HAS to bring it to school. And I lie and say I took it away from her because she was SO UNBELIEVABLY BAD this morning. And she probably won’t EVER get it back. And that sets her off sobbing and crying even more.

It’s now 9:20. She was due at class five minutes ago. We’re now sitting and not moving because every parent and grandparent in the area is now trying to find spots for the giant and joyous costume parade that I am now seriously doubting we’re going to make. So I become an even worse mother and tell Big Girl that because she was so terrible, she’s probably not going to make the parade, and I’m not going to get to see her if even if she does. Then I call my husband and scream at the top of my lungs how I CAN’T STAND IT! And how HORRIBLE Big Girl was to me. And how she’s SPOILED! And how humiliated I was that the woman who cleans my house had to hear how terrible my children are to me. How HER kids would probably kiss her feet if she was able to give them what we give our kids. My husband, my darling husband, tried to talk me down. But I hung up because we were sitting in a line of traffic that wasn’t moving, and had to make a risky move.

I pull off the road, do a U-turn, and go up to the major road to try and come in the back way. It works. I get to the school, park in front of a hydrant, grab the fruit salad, and run it and Big Girl, with her splotchy, tear-stained face, up to the school door. I don’t even kiss her. I have to run to drop Little Girl off.

I get to Little Girl’s school. She’s now clutching me like I’m a life raft. She’s sobbing. She’s crying. She wants me to STAY. She doesn’t want me to go. I make her go potty, put her into her costume, and give her a kiss. The teacher pulls her off of me and my heart is just breaking. For Big Girl and for Little Girl. I am now hollow inside. I can’t even stay to make sure she stops crying because I am needed at the elementary school. I can’t miss Big Girl’s parade.

I leave the school crying. I get back to the other school in record time, park illegally again, and run to the parking lot. The kindergarten kids are just starting to walk the parade route. And then I look around. Every freaking person looks like they are going out to dinner on a Saturday night. Full makeup. Nice clothes. Grandmas, dads, and moms. And there I am. One of those people. I could pass for a homeless person if it wasn’t for the fact that my skips are Coach and the two-day-worn jacket is Juicy Couture. I send my husband an email:

“Everyone is done to the nines with makeup and nice hair. Standing next to Insert Name of Couple We Know. All the dads are here.”

And then people start coming over and saying hi. Many of the same Brownie moms I saw yesterday when they dropped their kids off for a trip. And I’m feeling even worse because I know THEY all know I am wearing the same outfit from yesterday. But then I try and shake it off. I start focusing on the kids and their costumes. Neighborhood kids. My Brownies. The kids I teach religion to. My daughter, who is right in there looking proud. The only Madeline in a sea of candy corn witches and M&Ms. I start to smile. They look so happy. So cute. And so little. And then it hits me: I lost my mind this morning on a kid who is still only a baby. And then I feel guilty and sad again.

I walk back to my car with a heavy heart and call my husband. He’s great. He tells me that no one is going to make fun of me for looking the way I do. That everyone knows how hard I work. They understand. That I didn’t damage my kids with the things I said. (Ha! I disagree.) That we just have to focus on being happy and not sweating the small stuff. And that this, too, will pass.

And now I am here, blogging it all because I have to get this out of my body so I can continue my day. Thanks for listening.

About two minutes into our wait the kid starts losing it. Granted, her mother is stressed, and she’s probably feeding off that. Still, she’s running around the studio waiting room. She’s whining really loudly about how she wants to go home. She’s hitting her mother. She’s trying to open the mother’s purse to get money because she’s thirsty, she says. She’s making such a spectacle that Little Girl was staring. She even asked me, “Why that girl yelling, Mommy? She sad?”

The mother, in her embarrassment, is doing everything in her power to placate the kid. Explaining that they will drink when they get home. Trying to distract her. Threatening, cajoling, sweet-talking. I felt for the mother. I did. Then, in desperation, she pulls a bottle of Coke out of her pocket. I instantly stopped feeling bad for her.

“Here, drink this,” she tells the little girl. The kid tells the mother she doesn’t like soda. The mother keeps foisting it on her. The kid, giving into her thirst, finally grabs it and starts chugging. And I do mean chugging. The kid must have been really, really thirsty. The mother warns her not to drink so much and tries to grab the bottle back. “You’re drinking too much. You’re not going to be able to eat your dinner,” she tells the kid. I couldn’t help it. “Forget dinner,” I said. “She’s not going to be able to SLEEP.”

I walked out of that place with a headache and a heavy heart. The mother made a bunch of wrong moves, IMHO. I can’t understand why she handed a three-year-old a bottle of caffeinated Coke. Just sad. As some people have commented, she should have taken the kid to the car rather than losing it and giving in to whatever the kid asked for.

Okay, so the title of this blog is Little Kid Freak Outs — Outs, as in multiple freak outs. Today, I went to a local library’s book sale. Little Girl is being her adorable self. Talking, finding books she “loves.” (“This my favorite, Mommy. Oh, my goodness, Mommy, look what I find!”) She was putting a smile on every person’s face in the joint. A woman stopped to compliment me on what a beautiful, smart, sunny child I had. She’s so happy, she said. Little Girl, not pleased to be ignored by me, decided she was going to show me how displeased she was. She started knocking over the books. Then she lay down on the floor and started kicking them. Then, when I tried to put her on a time out, she reached out and hit my arm. At that point, I picked her up, screaming, I might add, and carried her to the car. She was done. No second chances. She screamed the entire way home since, as we were leaving, her little friend arrived. Once she realized that she wasn’t getting her playdate the screaming got even louder.

When I got to my driveway she threw herself on the concrete and refused to walk into the house. I calmly picked her up, carrying her into her crib. She had to eat lunch, but I needed a time-out by that time. Once I removed myself for a bit I went back and took her out of the crib, helped her soothe herself, and brought her downstairs for lunch. She finished eating, and went down for a nap.

Yes, freak outs happen, but I think I handled my freak out better than the other mom because I created instant consequences, and enforced them. I hope, after some time, that Little Girl will get the point that poor behavior choices result in not having fun. The other little girl? Well, she just learned that if she hits her mother, eventually she’s going to get soda. Not the best message in my book.

Over the Christmas holidays we went to the Long Island Children’s Museum. While we were there, one of my friends ran into one of her old friends. The girl had a 9-month-old and a three-year-old. We started chatting. She asked me how my big girl liked becoming a big sister. She wanted to know, she said, because, “she’s (pointing to her own big girl) is just terrible.” I went through a period just like that, I was about to explain, but she kept talking. “Yes, she’s really not listening, and I don’t know what to do. We tried spanking her, but it doesn’t seem to work…” She was still talking, but I didn’t hear anything past the phrase “we tried spanking her.” I looked down at her daughter, a tiny little thing, and had to will myself not to be judgmental.

Spanking is one of those polarizing topics. Either you do it, or you don’t. There’s no in between. And if you do it, you usually feel very strongly about it. And if you don’t, you probably have a reason.

I grew up with a single mom since my dad died when I was little. She worked a lot. Money was tight. When things got stressful (and they got stressful a lot) and we misbehaved, my mom hit us the same way that my grandmother hit her when she was a little girl. No, we weren’t getting punched or kicked. More like hit with the shoe, hit with the big wooden spoon, hit with the slipper. I can vividly remember being hit with the handset of one of those old-fashioned rotary phones because I was sneaking out of bed to call my cousin. That one hurt a lot. I also got my hair pulled and got smacked. One time, as a teen, my mom was so mad that she picked me up by my hair and banged my head against the wall. But even that wasn’t something that would be considered wrong or bad. There was no stigma attached. It was acceptable, and my mom did it where she thought we needed it — in front of people, on the front lawn, at the store. All the adults in the neighborhood did it. One time my uncle even hit me because I was misbehaving with my cousin.

Me, I can’t do it. I just can’t. I smacked Big Girl’s butt once. I instantly felt like I wanted to die. Here she is, this little, tiny girl. Here I am this big adult. My hand completely covered her behind. She weighed, at the time, a quarter of what I weighed. She wasn’t allowed to hit back. She just had to stand there and take a smack because of something — whatever it was, maybe she didn’t listen, maybe she was fresh? How is that a fair fight? How is that teaching her right from wrong? How is that going to build trust between us? How can I, as a mother, tell her never to let anyone lay a hand on her if I am doing exactly what I am saying is wrong? And how can I tell her not to hit other children if hitting is okay in our house?

I know lots of people say that spanking is a solid disciplinary tool. And that it’s the only thing that kids respond to. Me, I say that’s a load of crap. I’d say those people were taking the easy way out, but I can’t even own that statement because, at least for me, it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I think, like my mom, a lot of people are acting out of frustration and anger. They lose their temper. And once they do it once, and they see the look of fear in a child’s eye, they think it’s a good idea.

After I smacked Big Girl, I took her in my arms and apologized. I told her that it’s not okay to hit, and that I was wrong and very, very sorry. And that it would never happen again. I told her sometimes grownups make mistakes, too, but that I learned my lesson. Since then we use time outs and taking things away instead of smacks and spanking. It’s working out pretty well. My heart honestly goes out to that woman we met at the Children’s Museum and to any other adult who spanks. I think, if they think about it, it’s actually hurting them as much as it’s hurting their kids.

Let the comments fly. Why am I right? Why am I wrong? How do you feel about the issue.

Take the bike riding: I’m out there getting ready to teach and she screams when she can’t get on the bike. She screams when she gets on and the bike falls. She screams when the helmet isn’t positioned right. Once we’re off and riding (and running behind the bike) she screams when a neighbor sees her and cheers her on, “Go, Big Girl!” Crumpling in tears, the kid tells me that she doesn’t want anyone to see her trying to ride. That she doesn’t like it when the nice lady (nice is my word) tells her, “Go!” Then she screams when I attempt to let go and let her ride. I stay calm. I try another tactic, telling her there will be no more yelling or we have to stop. I try and build up her confidence. Eventually, by the end of the lesson, the screaming had subsided. Then we went in the house and she bumped her toe. She screamed like someone had shot her with an arrow.

This morning we had screaming when she couldn’t pick an outfit. She missed the bus because my husband, fed up with the screaming, told her she wasn’t going to school. She had screamed too much and would suffer the consequences, he said. He even called the bus driver and told her not to come.

She’s at school, of course. He drove her over at 9 a.m. I am drained for the day and it’s only 9:44 a.m. I have no idea how to get her to stop screaming. We listen to her. We talk to her. We reason with her. She gets plenty of love, affection, attention, and care. And still she screams. The girl who cried wolf comes to mind. As does the fact that my mother often told me that if I continued to cry over nothing eventually no one would believe my cries anymore. Great. Wonderful. My mother’s prediction — some day I would have a child who would drive me as crazy as I drove her — came true.

We’re going to go to the library tonight, I think. We’ll be taking out that old fable and reading it. Several times, perhaps. And then we will set up a behavior chart to try and curb this noise. Can you tell I’m trying so hard to be positive and proactive? What other choice do I have? Thank goodness the little one could fall off a bed or walk into a wall — yes, she’s done both — and barely give a sniffle. I don’t think I could stand the yelling in stereo.

Do you have a screamer? What’s your kids most annoying habit? How do you deal with it?

Spanking is one of those polarizing topics. Either you do it, or you don’t. There’s no in between. And if you do it, you usually feel very strongly about it. And if you don’t, you probably have a reason.

I grew up with a single mom since my dad died when I was little. She worked a lot. Money was tight. When things got stressful (and they got stressful a lot) and we misbehaved, my mom hit us the same way that my grandmother hit her when she was a little girl. No, we weren’t getting punched or kicked. More like hit with the shoe, hit with the big wooden spoon, hit with the slipper. I can vividly remember being hit with the handset of one of those old-fashioned rotary phones because I was sneaking out of bed to call my cousin. That one hurt a lot. I also got my hair pulled and got smacked. One time, as a teen, my mom was so mad that she picked me up by my hair and banged my head against the wall. But even that wasn’t something that would be considered wrong or bad. There was no stigma attached. It was acceptable, and my mom did it where she thought we needed it — in front of people, on the front lawn, at the store. All the adults in the neighborhood did it. One time my uncle even hit me because I was misbehaving with my cousin.

Me, I can’t do it. I just can’t. I smacked Big Girl’s butt once. I instantly felt like I wanted to die. Here she is, this little, tiny girl. Here I am this big adult. My hand completely covered her behind. She weighed, at the time, a quarter of what I weighed. She wasn’t allowed to hit back. She just had to stand there and take a smack because of something — whatever it was, maybe she didn’t listen, maybe she was fresh? How is that a fair fight? How is that teaching her right from wrong? How is that going to build trust between us? How can I, as a mother, tell her never to let anyone lay a hand on her if I am doing exactly what I am saying is wrong? And how can I tell her not to hit other children if hitting is okay in our house?

I know lots of people say that spanking is a solid disciplinary tool. And that it’s the only thing that kids respond to. Me, I say that’s a load of crap. I’d say those people were taking the easy way out, but I can’t even own that statement because, at least for me, it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I think, like my mom, a lot of people are acting out of frustration and anger. They lose their temper. And once they do it once, and they see the look of fear in a child’s eye, they think it’s a good idea.

After I smacked Big Girl, I took her in my arms and apologized. I told her that it’s not okay to hit, and that I was wrong and very, very sorry. And that it would never happen again. I told her sometimes grownups make mistakes, too, but that I learned my lesson. Since then we use time outs and taking things away instead of smacks and spanking. It’s working out pretty well. My heart honestly goes out to that woman we met at the Children’s Museum and to any other adult who spanks. I think, if they think about it, it’s actually hurting them as much as it’s hurting their kids.

Let the comments fly. Why am I right? Why am I wrong? How do you feel about the issue.