I love my son.

The pixie had a doctor's appointment, this morning.  After that, we went to Home Depot to get a drain hose for the washer (and have fixed it so the cats can't put holes in it crawling through into the bathroom).  We got one of their big, impossible to steer, orange plastic carts with seats for two small children and steering wheels.  It didn't take long to get what we needed.

And then trouble started.  I'd planed to go out for lunch, since it was early lunch time, and we were right next door to a family favorite restaurant.

However, as we went to leave, the imp started throwing a tantrum.  And I told him that if he hadn't shut it down by the time we were out of the parking lot, he was getting water.  He shut it down halfway to the restaurant, then asked for root beer.  I said no, and he started up again.  We told him to shut it down before we got parked, or we were going home.

Needless to say, he did not stop throwing the tantrum.  So we didn't eat at our favorite restaurant.  And he kept screaming, crying, thrashing, near-hyperventilating, and saying that he was a good boy, go back eat at fry place (which was an outright lie).  All.  The.  Way.  Home.  Twenty minutes of tantrum. 

I sent him up onto the porch, and sent Odysseus and the pixie out for lunch, while I dealt with the imp.

(He actually went from near-hyperventilating to full-on hyperventilating, during the course of this tantrum after we'd gotten home.  And we don't have any paper bags.  And the imp is clausterphobic, so that might have made things worse, anyway.  I'd read about another method: throwing a small cup full of cold water into the face of the person hyperventilating.  It works, but it's deeply unpleasant.)

It was unfair of him to ruin the outing for the rest of us.  It would have been worse of me to give in and let him have what he wanted, just to keep the peace.  I love my son far too much to let him grow up into a spoiled bully, and I love him far too much to refuse to teach him that choices and actions have consequences. 

He knows there are consequences, now.  And the tantrum he threw this evening at Wal-Mart shut down well before the harsher consequences set in. 

Hopefully this is a lesson that he doesn't have to learn the hard way as an adult, when consequences for bad choices can and likely will be permanent.