It's Veruca, Miss Salt if You're Spoiled

You can buy this photo, if you want to.

Along with the whining and general hyper-drive melodrama that has afflicted my child as of late, there is now evidence of spoilage.  In fact, Violet has begun to reek like expired cottage cheese. You know, the tub that has been waiting like a bomb in the back of the fridge since before President Obama was inaugurated, that's what Violet has become.

Last week, we were reading magazines for free browsing at our local bookstore and Violet became entranced by the ever growing pile of non-book garbage that clogs the entry way at said "book" store. I referred to this stuff as junk and assured her that she did not need any of it. She became enraged. Her tiny foot struck the faux marble floor with great force and she proclaimed, "It's NOT junk!" I countered with, "It is SO junk!" and things kind of devolved from there.  The semantic argument about junk has raged on ever since. I say, "You have enough junk in your room," and Violet replies, "Don't call my toys junk!"

Back to the bookstore: On our last visit, there was a small poodle in it's very own purse that struck Violet's fancy. There are just as many plushies as there are picture books at this store, so we usually have to make a refusal or two, before Violet gets the picture and shuts her mouth.  I can accept her mooning about some toy du' jour, but she was relentless about this poodle. She used every word in her vocabulary to make it known that she wanted this stupid dog.  She begged, she whined and eventually she just threw herself down and cried about it. I was horrified, not because someone might see and get all judgy about our parenting, but because this toy was soooo not worth a tantrum of this magnitude.  If the item in question had been a Coraline doll (her absolute favorite movie), or a 5T replica of Tiana's gown from The Princess and the Frog; I could totally understand Violet's explosion of fury, but the poodle was scarcely bigger than my cellphone and apropos of nothing dear to her heart. 

It was at that moment that I realized what was actually going on. Violet doesn't understand that we are in a recession...

Seriously, my kid is spoiled and I have no one to blame but my mother-in-law myself. I knew it was a risk. She is an only child and an only grandchild and fantastically (almost grotesquely) adorable. I just assumed that I would be able to easily squelch her emotional tyranny with  a logical conversation about the difference between needs and wants; instead I find myself having arguments about what constitutes "junk" in our household.

I am hoping that 4 years and 9 months is a hot spot for childhood narcissism and that I can look forward to easier days ahead. I can't take much more of this Veruca Salt nonsense.

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