catastrophic cartwheels

Today goes down in our family history as the first time that our firstborn had a full-blown, violent, screaming & thrashing tantrum...in public. Not sure anyone is truly interested in this news other than me but I'm gonna archive the experience anyway. Feel free to skim.

The sad thing is, there was no battle waged, nothing taken away, nothing lost. The outrage was Gage's sleep-deprived reaction to a series of cartwheels that did not meet his standards. I think we've got a perfectionist here. Hmmmm, let me think...yeah, he's got that gene.

All I could do was grab him and wrangle him to the ground. Although I couldn't see them, I could tell that the young girls behind The Little Gym counter were quite confused. Gage? Our happy-go-lucky Gage? So unlike him.

This is most definitely an ignorant statement on my part, but in the heat of the moment I truly felt like Gage was having a seizure. Transformed. Completely out of body. He didn't want anything from me or anyone else for that matter. He was just plain mad. Furious. There was no use consoling, joking or diverting attention. I just held on as tight as I knew how and waited.

Of course he came around eventually, as they all do. And, I'm sure this was not the last of the public tantrums. Problem is, that was karate class and he lost it over a cartwheel...what am I going to do with him tomorrow when it's time for gymnastics?