After four years of trying, we’ve finally figured out the key to obtaining model behavior from our preschooler.

All we have to do is satisfy her every whim and desire and make each day all about her.

“Emmie” just turned four. As befits a birthday princess, we made the Big Day all about her. Any sweets she asked for, she got. Family came from out of town just because of her. Anyone she wanted to play with her immediately dropped whatever they were doing to amuse her, she got to pick the videos everyone watched and everybody hugged and kissed her and got excited every time they saw her all day long. She didn’t have to clean anything up, no matter how big a mess she made. And, of course, she had a party and a birthday cake and stacks of presents. The entire day, as she told us more than once, was all about her.

Naturally, Emmie’s behavior was nearly perfect all day. There was no whining, no complaining, no arguing, no baiting her brother or taunting her parents. There was no manipulation, no defiance. We saw only an adorable, smiling little girl who couldn’t laugh or be cuddled and kissed enough.

And then there was The Day After.

As can happen to any of us the day after we’ve partied hard, reality hit Emmie like a proverbial ton of bricks. Suddenly, she was just another kid again. Competition for attention came not only from her brother, but from her visiting cousins as well and from the various tasks that had to be accomplished on this ordinary day. There were no more presents, and the leftover cake had lost its luster. Worst of all, Mommy and Daddy actually said ‘no’ on several occasions.

Emmie realized that four wasn’t looking all that different from three, and when the cousins left to go home, she challenged almost every word her parents uttered and threw several screaming, crying temper-tantrums to let us know that she did not approve of this return to the status quo.

Poor Emmie. I can understand her disappointment. Who doesn’t turn a bit wistful when reverence and privilege return to ordinary? Remember when you realized that a boyfriend or girlfriend—or maybe your husband or wife—had stopped courting you with flowers and flattery and a seemingly endless stream of little attentions and affections because the relationship had transformed from the novel to the expected? Or that frenzied holiday buzz that deflated like latex birthday balloons as soon as the December holidays were over? Or—and this is probably just for the married women out there—the post-wedding blues, a state of being that sounds so ridiculous we laugh dismissively every time we say it, yet somehow we always know exactly what is meant when another just-married bride laments the condition?

At the age of four, birthdays come with promise and excitement that they lack once they reach higher up the ladder. But, as Emmie has learned, all that scintillating fun just makes The Day After that much harder to accept.