She's Come Undone

dadgonemad's story

August 15, 2007

After a full day of playing and swimming and pushing herself to the limit, my daughter absolutely lost her mind. If you have children, you know what this type of tantrum looks like: throat-searing screams, incessant tears and sniffles, spontaneous lethargy, and a single-minded stubbornness that leaves you no choice but to covertly slip into a phone booth and emerge as??Daddy! Crisis Negotiator Extraordinaire!?

Make no mistake, this was a hostage crisis. My screaming four-year-old daughter was holding peace and quiet against their will, and at 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night when mommy and daddy want to watch So You Think You Can Dance, it?s time to call out the big guns to quiet the child.

I have learned over the years that my kids are highly susceptible to humor. It?s kryptonite for their tantrums. Last night?s disaster was all about fatigue; she was flatly wiped-out from a long day of whatever four-year-old girls do. So after 15 minutes of errant, miserably executed negotiations, I went right for the sweet spot ? her favorite book. And that pained me deeply.

My daugher has taken quite a shine to a book called Fancy Nancy. The protagonist is a girl named Nancy who is so repulsed by her family?s normalcy that she sets out on a campaign to change them to her own liking. I have this horrible feeling that my daughter views this story as a textbook for a future hostile takeover of our household and not as a fictional silliness.

I read Fancy Nancy last night in the goofiest way I could conjure. Way over the top with the pivotal moments in the story, like when Nancy trips while carrying a tray of parfaits (?that?s a fancy word for ice cream sundaes?) and spills it all over herself. I looked down at her periodically during the story and saw my daughter trying to stifle laughter. Laughter meant defeat, and she?s not a very good loser. But she couldn?t help it.