Just before bed last night Maya said she was hungry...no, "starving" was her word. This has become a regular thing for her. She says she is hungry at night. Now, usually at dinner she says she is done eating even if she has a few bites left on her plate. So i know she is really not starving later that night. So I try to not indulge her by giving her a late night snack. I tell her that she should have eaten all her food at dinner and she'll have to wait for breakfast to eat. She is not happy with this and usually starts to cry.
But last night was a whole new level of crying. She went from a playful mood into an all screaming and crying mood in a matter of seconds. And then she got angry. Since she hadn't brushed her teeth yet, I told her to go brush them. She was just very defiant so I told her I would brush her teeth for her. So while she continued to cry I brushed her teeth. I pretty much ignored her mood.
She continued to cry and cry. Finally I reminded her that she left some food on her plate and she there is no reason for her be upset like she is. I never raised my voice or even told her to stop crying..just that this wasn't a reason for her to be so upset.
She tried to stop crying and calm down but was just emotional that she couldn't stop. She eventually said, "Dad, how can I calm down...i can't stop."
At that point I picked her up and told her I was going to count to 100 and she could join in with me when she was ready. So I carried her around the house, gently patting her on her back and slowly counting to 100. (Recently, she's been interested in counting to 100, so we have doen this before.) Eventually, around 65, she started to join in and as we walked around our darken house we continued to count up to 100. Actually we ended counting to 160 before she calmly asked me to put her into bed...where she fell asleep after I massaged her back for a few minutes.
