Wednesday, June 17, 2009

BACKTRACKING #3: Park in Pineville 2 (04.27.09)

NATALIE'S MELTDOWN
Natalie's mood soon went from this...
...to this.


I always try to give Natalie a warning 15 minutes, 10 minutes and then 5 minutes before leaving. She knew we would soon be leaving, but at the last minute (like after I said time to go), she insisted on showing Aunt Cari something. I proceeded to tell her, No, and that it was time to go. She wouldn't come. In fact, she threw herself down on the sidewalk (I'm sure gently enough that she didn't hurt herself. LOL). When she saw that I was heading to the car without her, she raised her head and yelled for me to wait on her. (the above image)

I wanted to take a photo of Natalie in front of this sign when we arrived, but I decided to wait for many different reasons. One of which was because I had my hands full with sonic snacks and camera bag, but mainly because I knew Natalie wanted to start playing right away. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have taken it first. I was so irritated with her because I really wanted a photo of her in her cute spring dress with the beautiful flowers in front of the park sign. I was pre-blog planning (doing any of you do this?). I was thinking a photo of Natalie with the park sign would be the perfect first photo to do this blog post: Of Natalie's fun day at this park! Oh well, I took one w/o her to use as the first image (shown in the previous post) while she was caught up in her rage and running around the sign. Oh well...life happens.

As a parent, I wanted my kids to be as perfect (especially in public and/or in photos) as possible. I guess I thought it would be a perception of my parenting skills. Gee! Maturity certainly changes many of our perceptions and takes on life not to mention actually parenting a child to adulthood. So as a parent who be quite embarrassed over the outburst in public became the grandmother, who was yet still very irritated and frustrated about it, but also understanding because I knew she had not had her nap and was getting very tired, chuckled about it, smiled at the family looking (that included a grandmother) that did laugh/smile at us and then I PHOTOGRAPHED IT! After all, it is one of those phases of life that I want to remember as well as the sweet, most precious moments. How can we appreciate all those wonderful moments in life if we don't have some like this?
~~Natalie's Mimi~~

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