Living with a toddler with the terrible twos is akin to living with a banshee who moonlights as a UFC fighter
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 10:28AM Around 17 months Felix started his preparation for the terrible twos. There was a lot of crying, there was a lot of "No" being said with an occasional "Mine!". But that was it. And I thought "If this is it, I got this"
I didn't have this. I didn't even come close to remotely having this. If you could rank how close I was to having the terrible twos down pat on a scale of 1-100, I wouldn't even be able to tell you how many zeros would follow that 100. Whatever 100 to the billionth is, I'm pretty sure that's the number.
He's nuts, toddler hood has made him insane. And unpredictable and he has turned the temper tantrum into an art form. Albeit an art form for sadists.
There are five elements to his temper tantrum:
1. The offense- this is where we catch him lurking in a cabinet, climbing a bookshelf, trying to unplug and plug the lights or sometimes just trying to wear his food. So of course, you have to pick him up and tell him gently but firmly no. Easy.
2. The war cry- Oh, my g-d the war cry. This is his high pitched scream that after 10-20 seconds simply exceeds the range of the human ear and carries on to dogs and intergalactic aliens. I sadly couldn't catch this on video. So I did the next best thing and found a pretty accurate representation, just insert a toddler. Oh, and your ears don't know it, but they thank me for this.
3. The assault-The worst of all the temper tantrum elements. The pinching with his nails that draws blood no matter how close we clip them, the hair pulling and the biting. He has wicked maneuvers that could take down Chuck Norris and send him crying. And afterwards? I look like a wolverine attacked me. Not THE wolverine because that would be a completely different and possibly gratifying encounter.
Bites marks courtesy of the toddler. Click photo to enlarge
Bite marks courtesy of the toddler. Click photo to enlarge
4. The punishment-after element 3 happens, after 'no' we sit him in the chair for a timeout. Kinda.
5. The facedown-sometime during time out he will slither out of the chair and proceed into the facedown. This move involves hurling himself face first to the floor so hard that you are sure he just knocked all his teeth out and broke his nose He perform this act on carpet, grass and tile floors. Thank god my father in law is a dentist. I should note that the face down can and has happened after or during any of the elements above.
I have spent much time trying to find the solution to the above. Toddler books make me want to throat punch authors with their tips and tricks that implicate that they have never seen a toddler. You do not negotiate with terrorists authors, even George Bush knew that. If these authors had experience with toddlers their books would contain chapters on escape plans tips or how to sell your toddler on the black market.
Unfortunately, the only escape plans I have is for a zombie apocalypse and I just don't think that's quite fitting, even for the terrible twos.
So while I don't have answers yet, I can provide a sentence or two of wisdom for all the non-toddler moms or soon to be moms. Beef up, make sure to buy those gloves meant for large birds of pray and stock up on liquor, it's going to be a looong year (& 1/2?).
Reader Comments (4)
OH. MAH. LAWD...this is the funniest thing ever. Heck, I was laughing before I finished reading the title of this post. I can totally relate to all of this except my son likes to do drive by bites where he runs up behind me and bites the tiniest sliver of skin on the back of my thigh. Gets me EVERY TIME. Oh and the hitting...makes you feel really loved eh?
Oh drive by biting sounds awful. They really know how to do a number on us, huh?
Yikes! My son is only 8 months old, so I'm not experiencing the terrible twos yet, but it looks like I have my work cut out for me when we get there!
I'm following your Twitter feed now!
I'm a mommy blogger, too! www.mybossisteething.com
8 months old is such a great age. Not yet completely mobile but still active and interested. And I have to say the title of your blog cracks me up.