Tantrum Soup

So we had a roe of it last night with our 4-year-old over a new dish I made, a traditional Carmichael soup called hamburger soup. It's really delicious, much like a tomato-based stew with potatoes, celery, carrots, rice, and hamburger. Very good. We all scarfed it up (3 of us), but Abby would have nothing to do with it. And I don't offer choices when it comes to meals. I've read lots of parenting magazines where they advise doing this ("offer two to three choices at each meal...blah, blah, blah). Not enough time or money in this house to be offering menus like at Jack-in-the-Box. So needless to say, Abby was not a happy camper. She was pretty grumpy about even having to try the dreaded soup. She gave us a huge fight, wouldn't even open her mouth. She's pretty picky about food, too, but even this is uncharacteristic of her willfulness. We toyed around with possibly sending her to bed early and without dinner (you know, like our forebearers have often done before us), and we sent her there for a half an hour even, while we talked it over, trying to decide what to do.

It really seemed harsh to me; this wasn't a practice in our home growing up, but Eric swears this was done with him many times. So to settle it, we called his mom to see what she thought was fair, and she was lenient, saying she would offer another option, but at least make her try the soup before giving her the other option, and she wouldn't send her to bed early; plus, she doesn't recall ever sending Eric to bed without dinner. Eric still sticks to his guns on this one. Who knows. So after hanging up the phone, Eric and I talked about it and decided we would come to the middle on it, considering Dr. Dobson's recommendation of not offering other options with food. If she was hungry, she would have to eat the soup, but if she didn't want it, she could go to bed without eating, which really implies she's not all that hungry anyway, and we decided not to force her to go to bed early. We did make her try the soup (earlier in the argument), forcing down three painful bites, but that was all she could manage. So at least she tried it, even if it was under great duress.

In all the cacophony of Abby's crying jags and our heightened frustration, Esther didn't really know what to do. She played by herself a little in the living room, but kept wanting me to come sit with her; she doesn't like it when sissy is in trouble. Finally, she came up to me in the kitchen, holding her hands up to me to be picked up. When I picked her up, I held her head close to mine so that we were cheek to cheek. And then I heard her whisper in the quietest little voice, "I love you, Mommy." It was enough to bring tears to my eyes, exactly what I needed at that exact moment. "I love you, too, baby girl." Precious.

And Abby played the rest of the evening as though nothing had happened; she went to bed without complaining of being hungry (for, of course, she wanted nothing more to do with that soup), and she awoke in the morning good and ready for breakfast.

Were we too harsh?