And the terrible twos continue...

Last night was pretty much a continuation of the night before.

I stopped on the way home to forget butter (my third grocery store trip of the week...and today I made a fourth...I seem to forget something every time!) and got to daycare 10 minutes before it closed. And again, after a very enthusiastic greeting, we disintegrated into temper tantrums.

Angelica's newest thing is that she wants to do everything herself. EVERYTHING. Things that she is physically unable to do, and things that are unsafe for her. Now, normally I am all for letting her try to do things she is physically unable to...but I will not consciously let her do something unsafe.

Example of the physically unable to: She wants to buckle herself into her car seat. She's been able to do the chest buckle since she was about 15 months old, but she cannot do the lap harness or tighten the straps. So, she has a tantrum.

Example of the unsafe: She asked for cherries for a snack last night, so I got some out and started cutting the pits out of them. So she starts yelling, "ME CUT? ME CUT? Angelica do it? NO! NO MOMMY DO IT! ME CUT!" Well, I'll be damned if I'm giving my two year old a knife. So I told her, "Mommy has to do it, it's not safe for you to use a knife yet."

So she throws herself on the kitchen floor and screams. I offer her the (now de-pitted) cherries and she throws the bowl across the room.

So I gently say to her, "Angelica, when you calm down, Mommy will be in the living room. You can come to me when you're calm and I will give you a hug.

30 minutes later, still on the kitchen floor, screaming. (I checked on her every 5 mins or so to calmly remind her of where I was, tell her that I love her, and that I understand she's frustrated, but Mommy cannot give her a knife.)

I sat with my head in my hands, just doing deep breathing exercises. And then I got up, and kicked a helium balloon that was still hanging out in our living room from her party.

I felt awful. I know the last thing she needed was for me to coddle her, because after all, tantrums are exercises in attention-seeking (believe me, I've been doing research and the "ignore" approach works best for us!)...but it was so hard to hear my little girl cry. But I also felt awful for being frustrated, because I don't want to be that mom who is always angry. (And I'm usually not, but there have been other, non-Angelica related things going on lately that have left me stressed out and completely drained.)

She did eventually calm down, and asked to go outside and play with chalk. And all was good again until...she couldn't open the package of chalk herself, and then it turned into another screaming fit.

And so it goes. Welcome to the terrible twos!

By the way, the "ignore" approach I use is based on this advice from Dr. Sears...he has some really great tips on that page for dealing with tantrums, but with all advice, you have to also do what works for your kid...if she's not receptive to being consoled, which she makes evident pretty quickly by pushing me away, hitting me, or telling me to go away, she's left to work it out with regular check-ins until she calms down. It usually nixes the tantrum pretty quickly, but sometimes, if she's tired or having a bad day, it takes longer. Most of Angelica's tantrums are "frustration tantrums", which require some empathizing, especially if she can't do something...so I try. But lately, when I even try to help, she just flies off the handle, so I let her calm down and then we hug and "talk" about it...as much as she can understand at age 2!