toddler-tude

I gotta admit; I used to hate the term "terrible twos".

I mean seriously, what a horrible term for these sweet, sweet toddlers.

Then I got an up close view of those said terrible twos, and you know? if the shoe fits....


Baby Girl will be two next week and holy wow y'all, the tantrums? out of control.

When she has them.

Now I might jinx myself, but eight times out of ten, we can avoid her tantrums or at least keep them semi mild. Those other two times? well the devil gets in her at those times and we basically just have to hang on and try to survive.

Kidding. Sort of.

What I mean by "avoid" is, I know, if she's tired, I can't push her. If I do, she melts down (a la the middle of Macy's episode). If it's bed time, it's bed time. Not time to try and make one more stop.


When BG was a teeny, tiny babe (sigh...), her "witching hour" was around dinnertime. And y'all, history is definitely repeating itself.

As of lately, dinnertime is our biggest issue. She doesn't want to be in her chair, or doesn't want to eat, or doesn't want to basically do anything we want her to do. Fun right?

The other night (keep in mind we know about this witching hour), her Dad and I didn't feel like cooking so we went out for Mexican. You can guess what happened.

BG didn't want to be in her chair first of all. She wanted to sit with on her Daddy. She didn't want milk, she wanted juice. Then she put a chip in the hot salsa and that was all she wrote.


She was done. A trip to the bathroom for a "talking to" and a trip outside for a spanking were all for naught, the girl was done. So we took our food to go and ate at home where she was perfectly content to sit in her chair and drink her milk.

Oh toddlerhood...

But.. sort of our fault right? We knew dinner time was a sketch time. It isn't always and I don't think it will be for long, but right now, it is.

Figuring our what sets her off, and trying to avoid it, helps us a lot. Getting down to her level and calmly talking to her also helps. Ignoring her doesn't seem to help right now, neither does time out. We're figuring it out though. We're figuring her out.


I got to be honest, other than the newborn days (still hands down WORST ever), this is about the toughest thing we've dealt with with her. While all my tips above do work occasionally, there are times when not a thing helps. When she just wants to scream or cry or kick and we don't get it. When nothing makes her happy. When everything makes her mad.

I guess that's the "terrible" part. She's not terrible, not at all. But how she acts is and how helpless it makes us feel is.


But like I said, we're figuring her out. Slowly.

The good (bad?) thing is, she's not even two yet. So it seems we'll have plenty of time to experience and figure this issue out. Yay toddler-tude!