The essence of the problem was that Simone missed little B's lunch hour. She had the food ready but it waited in the car for someone to eat it as Simone, hubby and the little guy scoured Ikea in search of ideas to renovate their kitchen.
Already, everyone's nerves were fraught. The kiddie daycare provided courtesy of Ikea was understaffed by inattentive teens and when Simone tried to drop of little B, she was first told that they were full then, when she returned with a very excited little B a bit later, that they wouldn't take little B because he was not toilet trained. Little B responded to this with spitting and angry promises of "I hit you."
When he calmed down somewhat and hubby was busy working out a kitchen plan at the Planning Station, Simone took little B to the children's furniture area at Ikea. He tried all the beds, crawled in and out of various spaces and generally had a blast. Until he spotted the slide. And then a little girl, half his size, wanted to go on the slide as well. She went down. Little B went down and tackled her into a large pillow. Simone pulled the little guy away but his downward spiral had begun. The little girl climbed up the slide itself instead of the ladder and little B tried to follow suit. But since the little girl had reached the top and was preparing to slide down, Simone could only anticipate trouble if she allowed little B to climb up the slide. So...
she pulled little B away from the slide.
The meltdown started. Little B screamed in anger and frustration. People stared: after all, Simone and little B were in the middle of a furniture display. Little B rolled everywhere, pulling at furniture, screaming, hitting his head. So Simone did what she could to restrain him, holding his arms and pinning his legs down. Hubby came around and heard people whispering about the woman who was abusing her baby in the children's section of Ikea.
When little B calmed down somewhat, Simone released him. By this time, two Ikea employees had approached and one tried offering the little guy some water. Simone nearly laughed at this offer. Little B responded with a vociferous "NO!!!" and a subsequent attempt to bash his head against the floor. "Ouch!" yelled little B.
"No!" said one Ikea staffer, clearly horrified.
"You can't leave him unattended," said the other Ikea staffer to Simone.
Simone frowned at the woman who relented and gazed away before leaving.
"What's wrong with him?" asked the Ikea man to Simone's hubby.
"He's having a temper tantrum," Simone's hubby explained patiently.
The incident ended with Daddy carrying the little guy to the car where Simone promptly shovelled food into little B's mouth. To everyone's relief, the temper tantrum abated.
Parenting? It's not for the weak of heart...
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