Well we had our first nuclear meltdown tonight. Bless her heart, we should have seen it coming. We had the young adult group over to our house and she was having a great time being the center of attention, and it became bedtime much too abruptly for her. She was tired and feeling crummy from yesterday’s MMR shot and ongoing teething, but was totally wired and overstimulated. It ended pretty quickly, but it was several minutes of flat-out, red-faced crying. She wasn’t flailing about; instead she crouched in the corner of her room and wouldn’t look at hubby or me (mean mommy! mean daddy! I want to be with the PARTY!!!!!!)

I’m glad our first big screaming crying jag happened in the comfort and privacy of our own home–it was like trying it with training wheels–can I be calm and in charge while my daughter is falling apart. I’m sure that there will be times it will piss me off too–but tonight I just felt incredibly sorry for her. All that emotion and no context, and no tools to deal with it.
Speaking of that–earlier tonight she was eating dinner, and I was trying to push her to eat, and she wasn’t going for it, and we were both getting frustrated. So mostly for me, I started making a big deal out of breathing in, s-l-o-w-l-y, and breathing out in a l-o-n-g sigh. She is all about imitation these days so soon she started doing it with me! I’m not sure whether that actually chilled her out like it did me, but things went much better after that. This must be what they mean when they talk about teaching emotional intelligence! (Someone needs to teach it to me.)