RJC loves birthdays. She plans our family "parties" for each of us, picking out the type of cake she wants to bake and whatever decorations and other birthday-related item she chooses at the time. This month is my husband's birthday, and her plan was derailed. Not once, but twice.
First, she wanted to bake him a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. The problem is that his birthday is during Passover, so we do not bake the standard cake from a box during this time. She was pretty dug in on her idea but over a period of a week or so, where I repeatedly told her "No vanilla cake. Special chocolate cake for Passover," she finally gave up on her idea and got on board with the special chocolate cake.
Sidenote: she promptly threw out the full, unopened can of vanilla frosting. She saved the box cake, however, and bought a different kind of frosting to pair with it for her sibling's birthday.
The second disappointment came when she found a special birthday hat on the internet that she wanted to buy. My husband and I took her to the specific store where she had seen it online. We asked the employee for help and she kindly took us to where it should generally be and sadly, they did not have the hat. We walked up and down the many aisles and still, no hat. Once I realized the hat definitely was not at the store, I sneaked a peek to see if it was available online but alas, it was not. RJC continued walking up and down the aisles looking for this specific party hat while we were trying to help her understand they did not have it.
History tells us that this is the perfect storm for a meltdown and by continuing to wander through the store we were simply postponing the inevitable. We just could not figure out our next step of getting her out of the store without the preferred item. My husband finally said, while literally winking at me, "Why don't we try the store next door?" We felt mighty certain there would not be this specific hat but two thoughts: 1. She may find a different hat she'd be happy with and 2. We have time to try to figure out how to avoid a meltdown getting her back to the car.
She was agreeable so we went next door in search of this hat. As we walked around and around and around again, with no sign of the hat, I gently suggested we go back to the first store to see if there was a different hat we could buy instead. To my surprise she agreed.
Truthfully, I was not sure that she understood that we were going to look for a different hat, but she actually did. We walked around and she would stop and pick up different hats, examine them closely, then put them back with a sigh. Finally, a hat caught her eye. It looked nothing like the original one she wanted but she looked at over, and said, "I like this one."
My inner me was celebrating as we walked over to the cashier (who had helped us originally and was quite surprised to see us return). RJC handed over the hat and the cashier was all smiles as she cashed us out, well aware that this was a win.
There has been no more talk of vanilla cakes or wishing for the other hat. She seems happy enough with the new plan and amazingly we seem to be past the issue. For her to change plans about something important to her, especially when she has been talking about it for a while, is a very big deal. She is truly showing flexibility and acceptance of a different outcome than what was expected. In fact, though we could see she was getting a bit anxious (her voice gets louder, she states over and over again what she wants) her behavior never escalated past a general annoyance. Totally appropriate!
It is interesting that we still can never quite count on how she will react to change. Some days are just easier than others for her to accept a new plan. If we knew what it was specifically that was helpful in these situations, we would use that strategy every time. Whatever the reason, we are happy that in this situation she much less stressed than usual and she was pleased with the outcome.
In the end, her plan for a vanilla cake with a specific hat became a chocolate cake with a different hat - and she is ok.
A definite WIN!
