Backfire - December 2011

You'll have to visualize the picture for this one because I did not have a camera.  Imagine Travis carrying a miffed Ella out of Sacrament meeting.  This story ended with two timeouts at home before returning to church late for Keira's first day in Primary.  So let's rewind.  Sacrament was going pretty well.  But Ella quickly exhuasted her drawing materials and books and was looking antsy.  So I thought it'd be brilliant to play a game that I used to play with my brothers and sisters in sacrament meeting hoping it'd keep her still and maybe she'd listen to the speakers.  But I was wrong.  Very wrong.  I'd played it before with Ella on my phone but on paper it was somehow more cruel.  You see I got a couple of squares after some back and forth and warnings to Ella about what to do and what not to do.  I wrote the "m" (for mom) in the middle of the two squares.  But I didn't take into account one very imporant detail.  You see, Ella does not like to lose.  All it took was those two squares to bring on some tears and a mini tantrum which meant dad gets to carry her into the foyer.  Usually when this happens, which is fortunately not very often, she'll return later or Keira and I will meet them in the foyer after she learned some sort of lesson.  But this time was different because not only was Ella suffering from Dots trauma but she also lost her shoe on her way out.  So now we have not just one mini tantrum, but a full blown, cannot calm down or listen to any reason and won't stop whining about her shoe, tantrum.  Unfortunately for Travis, I didn't notice Ella's missing shoe until long after it was too late.  So Travis had no choice but to take her home and later dispell me from playing dots with Ella anymore in Sacrament meeting:)  Well...I don't like losing either and am determined to turn this dots experience upside down and carry on the tradition;)

I later talked to Ella about what happened and knew that she grasped the concept when she told me that she was happy once when Keira won at Mickey Mouse Yhatzee.  Well, shortly after that we had another game of Mickey Mouse Yhatzee which Keira got two Yhatzee's in and Ella was happy for her once again.