Its a bit long winded this one.
It was DDs 4th birthday last thursday. There is a carousel not far from us atm. DD loves carousels, been on them loads and without knowing this one had arrived, she said the night before her birthday 'mama, can i go on a carousel for my birthday pleeeease?' so I remembered that there was one in town. However, it was raining, so it was not open, instead we went to get an ice cream and a promise of going on it as soon as it was not raining any more.
DD has asked every day since if we can go on it, some days it has been raining, and the last two days, although not raining, it was still not open.
Today, we went out for lunch with some old friends, and DD was so well behaved, which is unusual for her at lunchtime . As a treat we had ice cream, and drove past the carousel to get home, and it was open, DD saw it, bouncing up and down in the back of the car, and DH checked the change in his pocket, £3.00, no problem 'you can only have one go though today DD ok?' 'yes daddy' bouncing around. We thought, normally £1.50, we might let her have two.
Get to the carousel, and a miserable woman comes up to our DD, who is skipping and twirling in her new 'party' dress with excitement, and said 'she going on it on her own?' and we said 'yes please' 'she will have to sit the carriage then, she can't go on a horse' (she has never sat in the carriage, she thinks it is for 'babies'!) 'why' 'because she can't, you have to go on with her if you want her on a horse' 'ok, one of us will stand next to her then' (being all friendly) 'sure...£4.00 luv' why £4.00??? 'there are two of you on it, you have to pay for both or she sits in the carriage on her own' the woman quite clearly could not give a toss whether DD was gutted or not, and there were no other people wanting to go on it. There was no way I was going to go get change (would have to drive to cashpoint) and come back to pay £4 for a 2 minute carousel ride
So we did not go on it, poor DD was very upset. We promised her she could have two gos next time. There is another one that comes to the area and I said we would go there as soon as it arrives and that we would have lots of change and that she would not have to go in the baby carriage.
DD behaved appallingly all afternoon, and was quite angry at me, generally misbehaving, refusing to do what i told her, and early evening, after I put her on the 'step' for being rude to me, she went to hit me with a toy, and i could see her anger, i put it down to tiredness/hunger so told her she was having her tea then straight to bed. She ran around the house laughing at me and being a right little madam.
when she was in bed, I told her she had upset me with her behavour and she started crying and said she was sorry. I cuddled her and said thank you for saying sorry, and asked her why she was being naughty for daddy and me. She said, in between tears that 'i was not naughty for daddy, i was being naughty for you' 'why for me?' 'daddy let me go on the carousel, you didn't, i was upset with you' 'so you have been naughty because you were upset with me? because you could not go on the carousel?' so i gave her a big hug and stroked her hair, and explained that the woman would not let her on the big horses on her own and that she did not want to go in the carriage instead so we could not do it today. I said I did not mean to upset her and promised we would do it another day (again). She said 'but i was a good girl today mama' and it broke my heart.
I told DH this when i had finished putting her to bed and he said he had seen her face drop when I said we could not do it today, she had been heartbroken.
Was I being unreasonable to not just pay the £4 even though I considered it to be daylight robbery? Even though it meant walking the 5 mins back to the car, driving to a cash point, taking out more than the 50p i needed, driving back, walking to it? (then giving a miserable woman who could not even smile at an excited child my hard earned money). Should I have just paid it, as now DD thinks I don't keep my promises. Which, well clearly, I don't.