Rory is standing in the garage screaming.

Right now, live action, I am live-blogging the screaming. How cool am I?

She is welcome to come in at any time. The doors are open. We can all hear the sobbing, stomping and beating on the wall (next to the open door).

Rory is in the garage screaming because she broke a known rule, one that everyone is careful about, one that she herself has been careful about many times. She sat down to diner, looked at her plate and said “I don’t like that. That’s yucky.” As a result, she lost her dinner. She can have it back when everyone else is done (which everyone is, now.)

She had to go in the garage because otherwise, she was laying on the floor screaming while we ate, and that’s not the point. For inexplicable reasons she will stay in the garage (which I have been known to lock, but is not locked now, in fact, the door is open. not just unlocked, but open) but not in her room.

Oh, I think she is emerging…still sobbing. So very angry. Now she is trying to score a partial victory. The rule is that anyone who says “I don’t like that.” or anything like it cannot eat with the rest of the family. Lily and Wyatt are sitting at the counter, having dessert. Rory wants her dinner (ironically, it’s something she really likes, with something next to it on the late that she likes less, and nothing that she actively dislikes). But not alone. Oh , she is creeping closer, closer..concession. Sitting at the table alone, eating and sniffling.

As soon as she’s done she can have a muffin. (Dessert.) Woo.

It’s not an unreasonable rule. You don’t have to eat anything you don’t like here. You don’t even have to taste it, although we encourage tasting. There is very nearly always something everyone will eat at every meal. And again, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it. You don’t even have to touch it. You have to leave it on your plate (unless someone else wants it and asks for it) and not say anything about it. It is fine to say which things on your plate you do like. There are veen some available compromise phrases. If asked, you can agree that you did not, in fact, care for something. You might even get away with politely saying you didn’t like something. This is about that moment, when you sit down at dinner and start to yell and be nasty. Yucky is simply never acceptable.

Rory has eaten, refused dessert aqnd crawled into my lap. You…gasp, gasp…hur my feelings. My heart was sad.

Well, ok, I felt bad. (thus endeth the live blog). I was sad too. I wanted to cut her a break…but she’s been given a break before, and this is a real problem. There are some things that are just black and white rules, and this is one of them. But her heart was sad, and now mine is.