Jekyll and Hyde

Two year-olds are such unique creatures. Full of joy and love and yet struggling for words and learning obedience. Max has been spending lots of time in time out lately as his little temper is getting away from him. When something upsets him, he tends to melt down into a puddle of yelling and tears. Luckily (at the moment) a time out in my room works wonders. I take his wriggling, yelling, crying body, and place him in my room, tell him he may come out when he is done crying and can use nice words, and shut the door. Without an audience, he calms down nearly immediately. Then the weird kicks in....he has associated being calm with being happy. He will break into the weirdest fit of fake laughter and come out smiling....then tell us, "I was joking." Go figure.

Just yesterday such an event unfolded at Target. Unfortunately, it is quite far from Target to my bedroom for time-out. This was likely one of those instances where you should leave your cart, take your kid to the parking lot, and go home. But people, I have 4 kids. I homeschool. I have very little time for errands. They get squeezed in wherever possible. I go to Target maybe once a month. We were out of pull-ups. I just could not leave. The tantrum happened due to the fact that Max wanted to walk through the store, not be put in a cart. Being largely pregnant, cold, tired, and in a big hurry because the other kids were in the car with Grandma, I just plunked him in, buckled him up, and we were off. Then the tears.....and yelling. I calmly told him repeatedly we were in a hurry, we would go fast, he needed to calm down. I offered him the dry erase markers to hold. NO TAKERS. After a short while and many curious looks from fellow shoppers, I realized Max no longer knew why he was crying. We needed a change of course. SOOOOOO......I took the pack of notecards that were in my hand and used those to bop the kid on the forehead. Immediately, I looked around to see if those curious shoppers had seen that. Then I looked for those security cameras. I figure I am now on a Wanted poster at Target for mean moms. But that little whack did the trick. He stopped looked right at me and said, "you hit my head!" Yes, I replied....I told him to calm down by doing that Lamaze breathing thing (only time in my life it has really ever helped). We practiced breathing in through our noses and out through our mouths.....and then came those weird cackling, giggles, and yeah, he was "Just joking mom!"

Anyone for drink?