Savour that which you want and already have
It’s 10:30pm on a weekday. We just got home from a Chinese orchestra concert. Charlotte is sleeping on my shoulder but I gently wake her up because it’s time to drink her milk, brush her teeth, and slide under her sheets.
She wakes up cranky. Not unexpected.
She starts crying. Also not unexpected. We expect a 3 year old to sometimes behave like a 3 year old.
But now she starts to wail. Real tears roll down her cheeks. She’s still sitting by the entrance, shoes still on her feet, jacket still wrapping her body. Uncharacteristically of me, I squat down to help her remove her shoes and clothing and help her into her pyjamas.
I microwave half a glass of milk and put it on the drawer cabinet, her usual drinking spot, and I tell her it’s there.
But instead of drinking, she starts to fuss.
“I want to hold it with one hand,” she demands.
“No, use both your hands, it’s more stable,” her mum replies.
“I can use one hand!” she shouts.
“Use both your hands.”
Now she’s getting frustrated and she yells her demand again. She’s doing this while she’s crying… wailing.
“Drink your milk if you want to,” her mum says in a tone that I instantly recognised as level two irritated.
Still, no luck. Charlotte continues to demand that she be permitted to drink, groggy, with the glass of milk in one hand. Her crying is now hysterical.
I walk from the kitchen towards her and snatch the glass of milk out of her hand and speak with a stern and raised voice, “You don’t seem to want to drink it, so I’m taking it away. No milk for you tonight.”
What’s a word that describes next-level hysteria?
She explodes at my confiscation; it’s a nuclear meltdown in the house.
“I want to drink milk!!!!!!!!”
“No, you’re not getting any milk tonight. Mama asked you to drink your milk one time, two times, three times, but you still didn’t drink it. What were you doing? Crying. For what? Isn’t milk what you wanted? You had it in your hands!”
“I WANT TO DRINK MILK!!!!!!!!!!”
“No.”
She screams these words a few more times, so I close her door and leave her inside to show her that this conversation is effectively over. Now we’re at level three hysteria. She screams so loud I thought her voice was going to break.
Ten seconds pass. Twenty. Thirty very long seconds later, I open the door again and I give her the closing statement: “Next time, when you get the chance to drink your milk, drink your milk. If you fuss, you’ll lose that chance.”
She went to sleep without milk that night.
When what you want is right there in front of you, savour it, taste it, relish it. Because if you don’t, soon enough it will be gone, and your lack of savouring and tasting and relishing might have something to do with it.
Written, edited, and published in 33 mins.