A kink in the routine

Bailey, nor her Mommy, likes change very much.  Today, while at the Y, our swimming ritual was different because the family dressing rooms were occupied, therefore, we had to use the regular changing area.  This confused Bailey tremendously, because we walk through the women's locker room to the pool area and then go to our family room to change, at least normally we do.  So, then we had to go back to the locker room.  When Bailey enters the locker room from the pool, this typically means we're exiting, so she knows exactly the path to get to the door.  Well, we turn instead and get dressed and I tell her, "let's go to swim."  Well, in the locker room, she's used to then going to the exit door, not the pool.  It was difficult to explain to her we needed to go the other way.  With hands full of our luggage, I scooped her up and dragged her kicking body to the right door.

 

We got out the pool and she was angry that we weren't going into the family changing room.  She then threw herself down on the pavement to exhibit that frustration.  Luckily, my hands were full.  So, I throw our stuff down in a fury and try to be patient with her and lead her to the pool.  For the first time ever, she was throwing a fit and yelling as we were going into the water.  Our audience probably thought she hated the water.  Oh no, that's not it at all.

 

Finally, she started to adjust and we spent some time in the water.  She observed the other children, and even tried swimming with her arms.  She was doing fabulous, and then suddenly, she was ready to go.  And so the fit-throwing begins again.

 

Well, right as we're gathering a billions of belongings, another family steals our changing room, so back to the women's locker room we go.  Bailey was NOT a happy camper about this.  In fact, she decided if we can't go into the changing room, she wants to go to the exercise floor.  She then started throwing a massive fit again, and of course, my arms were full.  This was embarrassing for me, mostly, because I had to bend over in my wet swimsuit in front of a pool side of viewers to grab my temperamental vixen.

 

Kicking and screaming AGAIN, we go into the locker room and to our stall to change, the stall with a changing table.  She didn't mind that stall the first time because it flushes (and she proved it eight times before) and flushed it this time too.  She also wanted to crawl under the door.  She found a green bead.  How does she see these things?  I ended up taking it from her and putting it in the toilet, which she was willing to go after, until I flushed it.

 

Okay, so we get dressed, which took forever, and headed out.  Normally, she's great at finding our doors either direction.  Today, our routine was different, so she wanted to go to the pool doors.  I finally redirected the correct way and we left.

 

Then she threw a fit for part of the journey home, but at least then, she wasn't kicking on the pavement, and I wasn't in a wet swimsuit.