We cruised the age of two in this house with a perfect angel of a child. We couldn’t help but pat ourselves on the back just a little, terrible twos? Pshaw! Out in public people would marvel at our daughters’ behavior, riddled with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and excellent table manners and patience. I remember a mother remarking to me, “You must be an excellent mother or your very lucky.” I smiled and said, “Maybe a little of both.” wanting to take at least some of the credit. There were some out there that warned us - parents of older children that said, “You know if you have an easy time with the twos, watch out for the threes…” we listened but thought if we just kept up what we were doing why would anything change?

Why would anything change? Because nothing stays the same, how about that reason?! No one wants to think of their child going from precious little baby to sweet little toddler to berserk little maniac but it can happen! Even to the most patient parents. We’re big on explaining, we try to ‘honor the child’ and accept and understand that she’s this little human that came to us with no knowledge of how to behave like a civilized person. It’s our job, right, as the parents to fill that little mind full of good information so we pry ourselves on patience and explanation. Recently I listened in while my husband bathed our daughter, she asked him repeatedly the same question and he -repeatedly- answered it the same each time, “Why do we take a bath?” -Because at the end of the day we’re covered in dirt and it feels good to wash that away so we can have a fresh start for the morning. “But whyyyy do we take a bath?” she repeated relentlessly. He began the explanation again. This continued so many times I finally just walked away laughing.

So for us it’s not even the repetition. It’s the crazies! It’s this sudden incessant whining, no question can simply be asked anymore it’s whined at us until we remind her that she has a normal, beautiful, lovely voice that we much prefer to hear so if she wants to ask us the same question fifty times she needs to do it in the normal voice. Then it’s the total melt-downs over the I-can-do-its, ok you want to gain your independence this is healthy and normal and wonderful but how about we tackle this without the hailstorm of emotion? “Just tellll me” I’ve said enough times to validate recording it for regular use. Our most recent nuclear toddler melt down was in the bathroom at our local health food store. We tinkled, we went to wash our hands, they had the foam soap… oh god… not the foam soap it’s her favorite. She got her hands wet, she reached to do the soap herself but it was too tricky, I watched her struggle then said, “I’m only going to help you a tiny bit…” bad move mom! Insert sirens and alarms she loses it, she’s screaming and cannot be reasoned with, she wanted to do the soap herself!!! What the hell is wrong with you mom?

I gave up and felt like I had no choice but to rinse & dry her hands, I expected to open the bathroom door to ten thousand prying eyes and throw her over my shoulder in the fireman’s carry as we bolted from the store with her wailing all the while. That didn’t happen which showed me the trickery of this toddler emotional business… I opened the door and a single employee was standing there, he asked, “What’s wrong sweetheart?” she stopped crying immediately, I calmly explained that she was upset that the soap dispenser was too tricky for her to work on her own, adding - for her benefit - that I had only helped her a tiny bit. He said, “Aww, you’re too cute, try not to be so upset about it, you’ll be doing all that stuff on your own before you know it.” It wasn’t like he said anything magical he was just the distraction she needed. A stranger, telling her what mom had been telling her, ok perhaps mom isn’t full of crap after all.

These episodes are so volatile - they’re like land mines and you don’t know what happened before it’s too late… but… they are also (I suspect) more intense for us adults than they are for the wee ones having them. As I watched this stock boy distract my daughter I realized she just turned the waterworks right off. Boom. Explosion over. I felt so panicky while it was happening but then I saw something that reminded me of the theatrics involved with toddlerhood - Drama Club. So now we’ve done a little talking about these situations because as far as I can tell she’s one Oscar winning actress, I ask her, “Honey, are you truly upset/grouchy/sad/angry or is this just pretend?” this has cut our tantrums in half at least.

Today we were leaving the park to a tsunami of whines that went something like this, “I don’t wannnnna leave, I don’t wannna go home, whhhhhy are we leaving?” etc. I stopped and asked her how legit this was, were we on the verge of tears or was this all a song & dance? She fessed up, “I’m pretending” she said quietly, “Oh!” I felt so relieved then boldly asked, “Can I laugh?” her  emphastic answer was NO! of course, just as any actor or actress would not want their dramatic monologue laughed at.