It happened to coincide almost exactly with turning 18 months old: my child may now be certifiably insane. One minute he’s happily playing with his toys and the next he is HOWLING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS because we won’t let him hold a pumpkin while he gets his diaper changed. Or, we leave for the park without his balloon and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.
Those things actually happened last weekend. It’s actually kind of funny how the slightest thing will set him off. Take for example the Pumpkin Incident.
We had just arrived home from some errand. Evan was reaching for the pumpkins that were sitting on our kitchen island, so I handed him a miniature one. He kept repeating his word for pumpkin (which happens to be “maniss” for reasons I don’t begin to comprehend) and a few minutes later we needed to take him upstairs to change him. I took the pumpkin and put it back on the table (a critical error) and my husband took him upstairs. He started crying on the way up the stairs and the tantrum escalated sharply upon realizing that the pumpkin was not accompanying him. “MANISS” he yells in between sobs, “MANISSSSSS!!!!” Dave laid him down amid much writhing and screaming. After a couple of minutes he realized it was a losing battle and said “Get the pumpkin! Get the pumpkin!” I ran downstairs, retrieved the pumpkin, then ran back up and handed it to Evan. He started smiling through his tears and saying “maniss” in this soft happy voice. From then on? He was absolutely fine. Until the next day, when we tried to get him in the car without his balloon and endured 15 minutes of screaming in the car. Good times.
I mean, I knew toddlers weren’t reasonable, but the violent reaction to things that aren’t that big a deal has surprised me. And maybe taken a year or two off my life.
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3 comments:
Maniss is funny. Perhaps someday he'll grow up to be a pumpkin farmer and this will all make sense.
I think they start to realize their independent nature and want to exert this new found control (don't we all?) You certainly learn to pick your battles. I learned this through the process, though. Children don't intuitively know things that we take for granted. For example, Evan had no idea that when he came back from getting his diaper changed, he could probably hold the pumpkin again. I learned to talk with LM, and to give him warning before the scene was all going to change. "LM, in 2 minutes we're going to head home, so we'll have to leave these toys here at the doctor's office until our next appointment!" with a little warning, and explanation, they can let go and reattach without crisis. Well, sometimes.
Write down the funny words, by the way. The years fly by and you'll be sitting around saying, "what was that funny word Evan had for pumpkins?"
looks like the terrible 2s are coming early, but maybe that means he'll get over them early too. you can only hope.
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