A PSA from the Brees Family

If you've been following the last few posts you know that John and I have been laying down the law with Sloane and today was no exception.

We went to the Art Festival this morning.  This will be our third year in a row and we (or at least I) just love it.  There is tons of stuff for kids to do and I enjoy looking at all the different works of art.  This year has been especially fun- my good friend Amanda's sister, Lindsay was chosen as one of Iowa's top emerging artists!

Anyways, before we even entered the grounds we clearly spelled out what we expect of Sloane, which is always the same two things-stay close to Mom and Dad and follow directions. She knows if it doesn't happen we will go home. Sloane did a really good job for the first hour we were there but as nap time creeped closer she started to lose more and more self control-which is to be expected. The final straw came when John asked her not to touch the paintings and she did it anyways.  As I mentioned in previous posts, we can't let the little things slide because those eventually turn into big things, so without hesitation we grabbed her hand and headed back to the car.  I'm sure you can imagine the tantrum that followed but we continued on doing our very best not to show emotion even though we were both a little dissappointed we had to leave, especially since we had talked about getting kettle corn before we went home.  :)

I have to say, I think we're getting pretty good at the discipline in public part and I'm totally fine with the way things went down this morning but the part that gets me......  People STARING!  I know she's crying and screaming, "I want to follow directions, I want to be a big girl." but STOP staring! Some people look at us like they've never seen a toddler meltdown (they should be so lucky)!  And I know, I KNNNOOOOW some are judging....thinking they could do it better or they would do it differently.  Even thought I'd be willing to bet those people don't have kids the staring still irks me.  I just wanted to look at them and say, "We're working on it buddy! So unless you're going to offer us a hand- stop staring!"

With that said, my little peanut is still the apple of my eye and even though we're working through some tough times together I love her dearly.  I mean what's not to love about this.... :)