Terrible twos – will they NEVER end?
I try not to be too much of a yeller, so to speak. I know that volume doesn’t make my words any more likely to be heard, and more often come across as condoned tantruming.
But, dude, yesterday was a helluva challenge to my self control, and I’m here to admit that I lost it for a few minutes.
I sent Sami to the bathroom to wash her hands. Sami + running water have in the past led to problems, but mostly minor problems like Sami deciding to wash her cup over and over in the sink with hand soap. I try to put a stop to such things within one minute, seeing as we’re in a water crisis.
Well, I gave her the requisite one minute, and at such time that my dinner prep could be abandoned to check on the progress of her hands, I went in…
to find the entire bathroom splattered with water, her head under the sink faucet covered with – you guessed it – hand soap. Dial, to be precise, for the curious.
I cannot tell you the lengths to which I’ve gone to explain why we shouldn’t waste water. In one ear and out the other. But mostly I was irritated because this pattern of slathering things on her head has in the past come to no good, and in this case could have lead to a grievous soap-in-the-eye debacle. (Luckily for all parties, it didn’t.)
I picked her up like a football, under my arm, supported by my knee, head under the faucet so that I could thoroughly rinse out the soap. (Hey, at least her hair got REALLY REALLY CLEAN.) When she started kicking and squirming and screaming, that’s when I lost it. I tightened my grip, so she wouldn’t fall and break her neck nor continue kicking me in the spine, got the rest of her hair rinsed out, dried her and myself off, and (loudly) sent her packing to her bedroom for a two minute cooldown.
Through which she proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs from beginning to end.
I went back to get her, and she wouldn’t even let me get a word in edgewise – if such a phrase applies to perceived interruptions of wordless screaming. I told her that I don’t talk to people who are screaming, left, and came back to repeat myself. Finally I yelled it at the top of my lungs, and that’s when she seemed to finaly stop to take a breath. Given a ten second window of silence, I managed to pick her up and get her calmed down.
Poopy diaper time! (Man, I cannot wait until potty training moves right on along. This is killing me.) Well, diaper change is an Olympic sport today, and it’s all I can do to maintain potential-mess-crisis management.
Having written it out, it doesn’t sound that bad. But when I yell, I’m loud. To me, in perspective, it now doesn’t sound so bad, but I wonder what the neighbors could have been thinking, since all our windows were open. Sigh.
Like I said, I strive to maintain control, and I generally keep my voice low, even if it’s sometimes fraught with frustration. Sometimes the sheer irrationality of it all gets to me. Grrrrrr.
Of course, guilt factor is magnified when Sami calms down and tells me, hug and all, “Mommy, I don’t like it when you yell.”
She might as well have just said, “Mom, you suck.” And no, telling myself the buttons she pushed to make me topple off my pillar of self control is no comfort.
I’m looking forward to her third birthday, when this will all magically disappear and I’ll be left with a cheery, helpful child who loves for me to read long stories to her.
A mom can dream, right?
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Dreaming, it’s a lovely thing…
You’re rad. The neighbors have likely been there. Or they’re just pushovers.
.-= noelle´s last blog ..Musica! =-.
Nobody calls me “rad” more than you do; for that, I love you.
Did you tell her you don’t like it when she screams and you don’t like it when you yell either?
I don’t know what else you could have done, except maybe get the Dial off by giving her a swirly. Which trauma might have prolonged the potty training…
.-= Wendy´s last blog ..Santiago de Compostela, Santillana del Mar y Santander =-.
Robin threw his first big temper tantrum yesterday, and I giggled through the whole thing, which made him EVEN MADDER. Yelling might have been preferable. (But he was so cute with his little red face and the way he flung himself around the bed and tried to throw the pillows . . .)
.-= Uccellina´s last blog ..Poem of first words =-.
Don’t ever feel guilty about yelling. You are human and you were mad. You get to share your feelings just as she does. She may not like it but she sure understood it. She is very bright and very curious, two traits you will come to appreciate very soon. Love you both so much.
Haha – oh Wendy, my mind first went to a swirly too!
Uccellina, the one time my super-chill eldest nephew threw a tantrum while I was babysitting him (he was two at the time, of course), I too had trouble not laughing… it was like, you’re super-calm, this isn’t you, don’t front.
OK, two things.
1) What the hell is a “swirly?”
2) Sadly, toddler tantrums are totally calculated events. In most cases. I’d say I lose my cool WAY more than Sami does.
Also, the first tantrum you witness may well be hilarious. Even today, sometimes I have to cover my face to stop her knowing how funny she is. But the 4303856939th tantrum is a lot less funny than the first one.
Breathe deeply… Mommy and Daddy date night tomorrow!
Using my INCREDIBLY in depth experience with children, I can say this. You’re kinda lucky. The fact that she doesn’t like when you yell means that A) You don’t do it often and B) She understands the difference. As long as you keep it in the back of your arsenal, I think you two will be OK
Then again, I’m a bachelor living in a giant kids apartment… so what do I know?
.-= JMR´s last blog ..MyWorld – July 22, 2009 =-.