Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Terrible Twos Already?

(insert laugh here)....the past few weeks have found us entering into a phase where patience and sanity are pushing the limits. I consider my husband and I somewhat intelligent people; however, no school, seminar, or parenting website has even tried to explain how the heck you deal with a toddler's tantrums. Are these the terrible twos?

It started about a month ago. I try and take every other Friday off to spend time with our Little Miss. She is 16 (almost 17) months old now and still fascinates me as I watch her advance. On this particular day, we did our usual morning breakfast, followed by a fantastic walk, great lunch with daddy, and then mama had this wonderful idea of getting the weekly grocery shopping done before the weekend rush started. Big mistake! As we walked into the doors of Target, Little Miss kindly started to tug away from me. Grabbing her to stop as I got a buggy, she proceeded to throw herself down to the ground, kicking and screaming bloody murder. Are you kidding me? With people looking and giving me the "control your kid" eye, my blood pressure began to boil. Do I spank her right here? Do I leave or become that parent that has a screaming kid throughout the store? I had no freaking clue. All I knew was I had a screaming kid and I was pissed. To add to that episode, these tantrums are starting to happen at restaurants or social events too. My husband is a lot more patient with her than I am, but we are still in this flux on how to discipline her effectively.

It's good birth control I suppose, but how the heck do parents do it? We have been blessed with an extremely independent (i.e. stubborn) daughter. Watching her these past few months, I have been amazed at how quick she catches onto things, and more importantly how sneaky she is. She knows exactly what I'm telling her - I know it. But, when she is in a mood or doesn't get what she wants, the battle is on and God help me it wears me out. How do we discipline a toddler? We both believe in spanking; however, I don't think spanking every other minute is very productive. Then comes timeout which is a whole other story to me. She will not stay in the corner for anything. It's so nerve racking. People are constantly asking when we are having another one. Our answer - as soon as we can tame this one! HA!

Long story short, just laugh with us during this stage. There are nights when we find ourselves exhausted and annoyed at each other because of different parenting tactics or having to leave an event early because we have an insanely grouchy Little Miss. I swear I'm starting to see gray hair and Dave laughs because he thinks he is balding more and more each day. All in all, I think this is God's way of getting us back - for being the stubborn children we were to our parents and for reminding us that, even though intelligent, we sure as heck don't know everything.

Much love,
Carla

1 comment:

Nicole said...

Well....you can try taking away some things that she like, such as toys (maybe that doll that she loves so much) or something that she may like to do.

Nicole