I obviously absolutely adore my son. Most of the time, he is a happy little guy who fills everyone with joy… but sometimes I’m really pushed to my limits. Here’s an example of one of those times!
My son is over two years old but he is currently “speech delayed”. He’s not non verbal, as he says mama, dada and nana reliably. He has also just started babbling this month, so now he says all sorts of nonsense. Being speech delayed though, he doesn’t have the 50-100 word vocabulary expected for a two year old, let alone the fact that most can put words together or string a short sentence. It leads to a lot of frustration, because he can point to what he wants, and he can cry. Those are his communication devices. This is pretty limited communication for a two year old who wants to express what’s wrong and what he’s feeling and what he wants but has no way to do it.
Tantrum 1 – He was upset because he had a dirty nappy, which I figured out pretty quick and then he was changed and ready to go out. We desperately needed to go grocery shopping and I wanted to nip to the local Lidl. I pop him in his pram and we get ready to go, but he’s now screaming and having a full meltdown. I offer him two things – his favourite jelly fruit (Bear YoYo) and a banana. He took the banana. I like to offer him two choices as it helps his frustration.
Tantrum 2 – We get to the car and he’s stuffed most of the banana in his mouth, as if he hasn’t been fed for a week. It’s literally coming out as mush there’s so much in there, so that’s everything guaranteed to get sticky but it’s fine. I’m immune to stickiness now. He aggressively shoves the small stump of banana left in the skin at me and I put it down to try to put him in the car seat – he has an epic tantrum, arching his back and screaming as if the car seat was a torture device. I finally figure out he’d given me the banana back to peel the final amount and despite already acting like a hamster, he wanted more. I peeled it and he had the last bite and he was happy. It would be a lot simpler if he could just say BANANA. One word would have helped instead of this guessing game.
Actually swallowing the banana takes him most of the trip, so the car is blessedly quiet.
Tantrum 3 – He doesn’t want to go in the shopping trolley. He doesn’t want to walk. He only wants to be carried. He weighs 35lbs, he is a big toddler, which comes with a whole host of problems. Okay, that’s fine. Let’s navigate an overpacked Lidl at 5:30pm with a crying toddler, a trolley with a full weeks worth of groceries, and an over-burgeoning mumbag. No problem, I got this.
Tantrum 4 – I finally bribe him into sitting in the trolley with the Bear YoYo I’d opened earlier. Lidl has cheese snacks on offer, fab. I chuck them in the trolley. He wants one, but I say no because I haven’t paid for them yet, and he’s got his YoYo to eat. Well, he did, because now he just chucks it on the floor. That’s gone forever. Bye. So I give him an apple from my bag – and he launches it full force across the store like it was a ball! I get a dirty look for a woman walking past but I don’t even care as I scuttle to retrieve it and put it back in my bag – hey, it can be washed for later.
We manage to get through the checkout by him being inside the trolley (breaking rules!) and as I pack stuff into the bags he’s taking them out and chucking them on the floor whilst wailing, so that’s helpful. The checkout dude looks about 19 and is laughing, but once day he’s going to be doing this so I feel a smug sensation of just you wait mate.
Exhausted, I meet my husband and mother in the carvery next door for dinner. No wait for food, and there’s a play area! I finally manage to get him to sit down and eat some food (mostly apple sauce and beef, and I’m not fighting it). After dinner he heads to the play area and immediately tries to take a toy from another child because he’s not super big on the idea of sharing something when he really wants it. The boy – who was way bigger than him – pushed him down.
Cue epic tears, screaming and sobbing. It’s the end of the world. It’s time to go home.
It’s 6:45pm when we get home, and I left the house at around 5pm.
That’s under two hours of the terrible twos. He’ll grow out of this soon right?
But once he’s home, had his bath, a glass of milk and a bedtime story, all the woes are forgotten, and he’s my tiny happy baby again.
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