Over the last week Mr. Cobra has been out of town working on a video shoot. I've been taking care of Dexter outside of my normal work hours by myself. It was scary the first few days because he's been throwing epic tantrums over the simplest things like which of the 2 identical oatmeal packets is poured into his bowl in the morning, or which direction I throw his ball. My favorite one (that is still ongoing) is that he isn't finished eating even if nothing is on his plate, or he's been sitting there playing for 20 minutes since his last bite of food. These all entail screaming and kicking fits. I suppose it's not THAT bad unless you have to listen to him scream for half an hour or more. We are still doing cool-off time in the green chair, but sometimes he gets so upset that it doesn't work. The week before last, was one week I'd rather forget because it felt like he was screaming in rage every time I was around him. I found going to work to be the best thing I could do since he doesn't seem to blow his top quite as bad or at least as often with the nanny. It made me wonder why on Earth did I decide to get knocked up again.
The oddest tantrums are at night. When he was going through the worst days of tantrums, he'd start screaming at 2am. He'd be dreaming about me taking this or that away from him. No amount of convincing worked that I did not take whatever item he dreamed I had taken. One night it was soap, another night it was a book. I was so desperate to calm him down, I picked up a book and gave it to him to sleep with so he would stop screaming. That worked, sort-of. To switch things up a bit, one night he was screaming that "NO! I'm Not going!" I still have no idea where he wasn't going at 2am other than back to sleep. That was one I couldn't fix.
When he's having a tantrum, it's impossible to rationalize with him. He usually can't be re-directed very easily into more constructive behavior. I've looked at many tantrum tips and tried most of them at one point or another to no avail. The most effective one to date was to close the door to his room so he couldn't get out, and let him scream for a bit. I only opened the door once he had finally stopped screaming, but I did talk to him through the door so he knew I was there. I just don't know what to do with him once he reaches the boiling point when he's kicking and screaming like a little animal. He'll push me, hit me, kick me and grab my hair. It's not pleasant to be the target of a 2 year old attack-toddler. He must have gotten my temper.
Luckily, as I mentioned before, whatever was causing that madness seems to have passed. I'd like to think that maybe I've just found the proper way to deal with it, but I find that highly unlikely. He's back to giggling, singing and wanting hugs — the sweet little boy that makes me feel guilty for working some days. Now he protests, but it's not usually a throwdown worthy pf Pay-Per-View like in the recent past. The middle-of-the-night tantrums seems to have disappeared as well. He still wakes up too early, in the crabbiest moods some mornings. I've started to bribe him with gummy vitamins to go back to sleep. Maybe it's better sleep, maybe it's hormonal, I have no idea, but I definitely understand why they call it the "terrible twos". I can only imagine how it will get worse over the next year.
