tantrum

Z is really sensitive to lack of sleep. A year ago we keep her up past midnight for the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The next day she had a terrible tantrum where she even tried to hit me! It was really bad.

Tonight we went to temple for Sukkot. This was our first time at this temple and Pere and I really liked it. The "family" service started at 7:30 and Z tried to find a comfortable position for falling asleep at about 7:45. I don't know what was up.

I know she was frustrated about not being able to see the Rabbi or the bimah well. And I couldn't always find our place in the transliterated lyrics of the prayers we were singing. I also wonder if she might have a cold...

But anyway she kept trying to fall asleep and was getting really bad moody. She had that tremble in her voice that she gets when she wants to cry. Everything was upsetting her and I was thinking about leaving but as the service was only an hour we decided to stick it out.

At 8:30 it was over and I asked Z if she wanted to just go home or to stop at the Oneg and have a cookie. Of course she wanted a cookie and we stood in line and I got her one. When she finished she asked if she could have another. I said "no" for two reasons. One is that there were still people in line getting their first cookie and second is that usually we just give her one of something for dessert.

But then Z started crying "I want another cookie! I want it! I want another cookie!"

As usual, when Z gets crazy is when I get really calm (good thing it works like that.) So I held her close and whispered to her to stop crying and that she was not going to have a cookie. Pere said that we should just pick her up and take her out but I _knew_ she would really scream if we tried and so far only the people sitting at our table knew what was up.

I talked her down some so that I was able to carry her out with just crying instead of full on screaming and trashing about. She was still crying about the cookie though. In the car Pere and I explained to her our reasons for not letting her have another cookie and then we reminded her that that it is a family rule that she is not allowed to have something if she whines about it. We have always had that rule and we have never broken it.

She seems calm now, she is reading herself to sleep in her room (she has rarely been able to fall asleep without reading first, since she was about 3 years old.)

I feel bad for her, she is usually really in control of herself and crying to have a second cookie is really out of character. I hope she isn't coming down with something...