Sort therapy

Rosie is fully exploring her power these days, and I am having varying levels of success keeping up with her. But the other day, we learned something together.

I have been noticing for a few weeks that Rosie has been embracing her two-year-old will with great energy. We experience daily struggles over buckling seat-belts, getting up or down from a chair on one’s own (“self!”), and tossing food on the floor in protest (or sometimes for laughs: ” “Joke!”:/news/2010/joke/”). I’ve had “re-read “Harvey Karp”:/news/2008/the-happiest-toddler-on-the-block-by-harvey-karp/” on my list for quite some time, and the situation was getting desperate!

Earlier this week, Rosie had an extra-challenging morning. She’d been wrestling with a fever for two days, and was only able to snooze on-and-off after a fussy 4:00 a.m. wake-up. After a few hours of play and a face-off at breakfast over throwing her toast, none of us were feeling very happy. But in a moment of quiet, Rosie found her way into our bedroom and starting taking Mama’s things off of the shelf. This wasn’t awful, but it’s not terribly safe, and I didn’t want her eating my Burt’s Bees Lip Balm. So I calmly removed her from the room, closed the door — and proceeded to witness a doozy of a tantrum.

I’ve read a lot of books about parenting, and I feel like I have quite a few tricks up my sleeve. But this day, none of them worked. I tried:

* being empathetic (Harvey Karp’s “Fast-Food Rule”)
* offering a distraction
* drawing with Rosie
* ignoring her
* asking Lucy to talk to her

But there was no consolation to be found. I wasn’t actually too upset myself, but I wanted to help Rosie get out of her emotional whirlpool — without my giving in and handing over the lip balm.

There was just one last idea that kept floating around in my mind….

Flashback with me, if you will, to the year 1977. I myself was two years old, on a family vacation at Disneyland with my mom, dad, and brother. I have no direct memory of this, but the story goes that we were walking past the Pirates of the Caribbean ride when I spied a large flight of stairs. I was _determined_ to walk down the stairs by myself, but was prohibited by my parents, perhaps out of haste, concerns for safety, or both. Dad carried me down the stairs, and I proceeded to throw the biggest tantrum they had ever seen, screaming for over an hour. Strangers started coming up and offering me candy. Mom was worried that passers-by would think I was being abused. Dad began wondering if they should take me to the first-aid center and get me tranquilized. Finally, in a moment of inspiration, my mother bought a large jar of jelly beans — red ones, white ones, blue ones. She sat down on a bench with me, and we began to sort them. I was instantly soothed, piling the jelly beans into color-coordinated mountains. I still cried every time my Dad came around the corner, but I got over that after a bit. All was happiness and harmony.

This story echoed in my mind as I watched Rosie crying inconsolably. I had always thought my parents could have handled my two-year-old stair-incident differently. “They could have shown more empathy,” I thought, “or they could have been more patient and helped me walk down the stairs. Every little girl wants to walk down the stairs by herself!” But my current predicament made me think that, sometimes, a girl just needs something else to focus on.

Mom had given us a box of Reese’s Pieces for Easter that was languishing in our giant red bowl of treats. I grabbed it, along with three little bowls, and sat down with Lucy on the floor next to Rosie. “I have a fun idea! Let’s sort Reese’s Pieces!” Rosie turned away from her sorrow in an instant and became absorbed in this new activity. I could hardly believe the quick success (only some of which could be attributed to consumption of the sorted candy). Perhaps there is just something in the Gortner blood that needs a little sorting sometimes!