Terrible Two

With our two older kids the notion of the terrible twos seemed to be an over-reaction to the developmental phases. Not for #3. We've recently endured some tremendous tantrums that rival anything John McEnroe could muster.

At Church on Sunday I had the audacity to pick him up from nursery. He wanted Mom. Mom is usually tied up in Primary and unable to come quickly after Church and relieve the poor nursery workers so I told Kellen that he needed to come with me and began collecting his pictures and shoes and tried to convince him that he needed to come with me. Unswayed he stayed back in the room screaming for Mom. After about a minute one of the nursery workers scooped him and brought him too me.

Bad move, nursery worker, bad move.

Kellen kicked his tantrum into high gear-complete with crying, full-body wriggling, kicking, and throwing his head back. Unable to find any way to reason with him I stuck him on the stairs into the upper classrooms and gave him a timeout - somewhat out of the hallway at least and let him scream his heart out. After he calmed down a little, and let me stress the little part of that comment, I told him he could either walk with me out to the car or stay on the stairs crying by himself.

He chose the latter option. In the meanwhile several concerned mothers wondered if this poor little baby was lost or possibly if his parents were negligent. Crystal and I reassured onlookers that he was okay and that we didn't really care if he screamed.

Finally Crystal dragged him out of the chapel and into the car. Once we got home, we told Kellen that Dad would be the one to get him out of the car and help him into the house.

"No. Mommy get me out."

Great.

So we left him in the car for 40 minutes while we fed the other kids their lunch and only after Crystal left to go to another Church meeting did Kellen finally assent to allowing me to bring him in.

All this paled in comparison to the tantrum he threw on Tuesday night.

The trigger this time? Who got him out of the bathtub. And to think, I'm the one that does the shake-shake-shake when I get him out of the tub.

This tantrum featured such violent body contortions that Kellen gouged his forehead on Crystal's mousse bottle and required me to use Kellen's pajama shirt as a straight-jacket to get a diaper on him. The usual arm bar and leg press were insufficient to get the pajamas on, but once I was able to secure both arms with a shirt and one of my fingers I was able to use my other legs and hand to secure his legs and get him into a diaper.

After finally wrestling him into his pajamas I wanted to calm him down so I offered to read him a book. He immediately calmed down, came and sat in my lap and sat nicely there while I read him a dinosaur book and truck book.

The second the cover closed on the second book, Kellen stood up started yelling and trying to pull his pajamas off.

I don't even remember how we got him into bed I just know I needed a stiff drink after the ordeal. Drinking cough syrup isn't breaking the word of wisdom is it?