More toddler fury (Anna)

Emma is beautiful when she's furious, even if her fury is also exasperating and exhausting. Which probably sounds very patronizing about her very considerable anger, but there you go.

This morning, we heard the rubbish truck outside so I picked Emma up to look out of the back window. We watched it (the truck, not the window)pick up 3 or 4 bins and turn them upside down , and we listened to its chomping sounds, and we talked about what it was doing.

And then it drove out of sight.

"More!" Emma demanded.

"But it's gone," I told her, and then corrected that to, "It's out of sight. Look. It's around the corner. We can't see it any more."

"More!" she said. "More! More!"

But her terrible, horrible, nasty cruel mother wouldn't make the rubbish truck come back into view, and so there was no more to be had.

She was furious with me, sobbing and crying and screaming, "More!" at me and sinking to the ground in torment. Nothing I could do or say appeased her or distracted her. If she had the language, she would have said, "How can you expect me to be distracted with a cuddle, a book or a saucepan when the rubbish truck has gone!!"

This lasted for a good five minutes, which is a considerable time to be listening to that awful toddler shriek. By the end of it, I was quite inclined to show her the INSIDE of the rubbish truck.

And eventually, I did something that wasn't quite as mean, or she got bored, or something, and peace reigned again.

Sorry, Emmy. I didn't mean to ruin your day.