Meltdowns At Storytime

We made it to storytime ON time today!  Yay!!  We were actually early for a change.  No sleeping in this morning.  We were up, getting dressed, eating breakfast and out the door before 11 AM.  I'm really proud of myself.

Moo was excited to be back at storytime when we first got there.  I think she missed having other kids her age to play with.  JJ on the other hand was not exactly thrilled to be at the library.  This is a shocker considering for so long the library was the only place he would walk for us.

Anyways, we're in the reading room waiting for storytime to start and out of nowhere he starts having a full blown meltdown.  There were waterworks, screams and even some flailing arms and legs action.  I was completely clueless as to what set him off.  I mean we're past the stage where being in a room full of strangers makes him cry. Or so I thought.

I guess because we haven't been in a while, he became unacquainted with the entire experience.  The room was filling up pretty fast and the librarian was ready to get started.  So, I was doing my best to soothe him. Offered the sippy cup, but he didn't want it.  Offered him the key, but they weren't interesting today.

Meanwhile, there's this lady across the room and she's giving me this side eye like she has some kind of issue. She just kept on glancing every couple of seconds.  Let me say that I'm not a morning person.  My family and the Mr can tell yall that.  So, I returned her side eye with some full on 'Do We Have A Problem' stare.  Thankfully, she was fluent in The Look language and put her side eyeing to rest.

I'm not one of those moms who acts like I've never 'been there' when another mom is having an issue with a child having a meltdown.  I think that parents who put the holier than thou, my kid would never act are full of it!  Yeah, I said it.  My kids aren't perfect.  They cry in public when they're uncomfortable or can't there way, but I won't allow anyone to make me feel apologetic about it.

Long story short, the meltdown was short lived.  Once they passed out the rattles for our rattlesnake song, he was having fun until he saw Moo had a bright pink rattle and his was a not so bright light green.  He's obsessed with having the exact same things as his sister in terms of toys.  This is good because he's grasping the concept of differences and similar.  It's not so good because it often leads to toddler-toddler tug-of-war and more meltdowns.

No sooner had the meltdown over the rattles ended did Moo start up about wanting to take her bows out.  Now, I worked hard before we left to tame her curls into two strand twists and hunted 15 minutes for those bows.  So, I told her no and she wasn't the least bit happy.  However, once I told her we were going home if she didn't get it together, she got happy again.  Storytime is her life right now.

I'm hoping that next week is better.  More than anything if a meltdown happens again, I hope I don't have to pass out any more looks because of other parents acting like they've never been in my shoes before.  It's storytime for toddlers.  Toddlerhood is almost more of an emotional roller coaster than teenagehood. 

How do you deal with public meltdowns? How do you deal with other parents getting you the side eye?