It's not a tantrum without an audience

This evening as I was preparing the leftovers for dinner The Boy came in to watch. He brought his stepping stool, a device which we bought and congratulated ourselves on for our parental prowess -- he could wash his own hands! do his teeth in the mirror! Yay!

Congratulating ourselves on our parenting and then regretting it later is, I am afraid, becoming a recurring theme on this blog.

Anyway. He watches me cut cooked chicken for approximately five seconds before realizing that is, in fact, boring. He then takes the stool over to our kitchen desk area, upon which now rests -- ha ha, so stupidly I can't even say it -- our spice rack. It lost its bearings over the stove some weeks ago and we haven't replaced it yet. The spices are all out of The Boy's reach from the floor but not, I discovered, from the STEPPING STOOL.

Before I can even utter the words "no! stop!", there is cumin ALL OVER THE FLOOR. Might I just add that he knows what happens when he opens those things, having done it before, and he knows he's not allowed to, AND he knows it's a mess, given that he danced around it yelling "I made a mess! Look mommy! I made a mess!"

I leave the chicken. I clean up the cumin, and happily enough I then move ALL the rest of the spices out of his reach.

But not the recyling, which is also sitting there ready to go out. So he gleefully picks up all the aluminum cans and throws them on the floor, delighting in the clanging noise. I stop him when he reaches the glass, and "help" him pick up all the things he threw down. (By this I mean, forced him off the stool, and guided his hand to each of them, given that when I said "ok, now it's time to pick them up!" he just said "no! I won't!" Heh. I'm the mommy, kid. That's what YOU think.)

And then I took the stool out of the kitchen. I was done, anyway. 

And he was not impressed. He went out of the kitchen into the hallway and started his usual "I'm very unhappy!" moan. Completely undeterred, I continued into the living room. I cannot see the hallway from the living room. This, I thought, was actually ideal.

He stopped crying. He came into the living room. He said "come! come! take my hand! come! come! come!" and pulled and pulled until I actually thought something was wrong.

And we went out to the hallway, where he crumpled onto the floor again, and resumed moaning.

I know it's cruel, but honestly? It was all I could do not the LAUGH OUT LOUD.