Terrible twos.....

Oh my word.... a certain little man has well and truly had me on an emotional roller coaster this week. It has been the week of 'the tantrum' in our house. Tantrums over having a shower (consequently his body has not been near a bar of soap in over 2 days), over not being allowed to empty a box full of rubbish all over the balcony, over having to go to daycare, over waking up in the morning, over everything really. You name it, we've had a tantrum over it. The shower thing killed me. A night or two I could deal with and just blow off but by the 3rd night I was determined to get him in the shower (after all, I'm an adult and he's a kid right?). I could not get his t-shirt off him for the life of me so my next thought was ok, I'll put you under the water with your t-shirt on if that's what I have to do to clean you. But then an image of my little man in a therapists chair saying "all my problems started the night my mother forced me in the shower with my clothes on" stopped me. My pleas of no-one will play with you at daycare if you're dirty went un-noticed (No, i didn't really think I could reason with a 2 year old in this way but once you reach a certain stage you just come out with stuff that you know makes no sense - you just try anything because you don't know what to do).

The pinnacle of frustration came one night where I was lucky enough to experience screaming and yelling accompanied by being told to do one thing and then being screamed at because I did the thing I had been told to do. It sounded something like this: "Go away mummy". I walk away from him. Increased screaming and yelling followed by "No, don't go away!" I walk towards him. "No, Go Away Mummy!!!!! After 30 minutes of this, I didn't know whether I was coming or going and was too scared to even breathe. I kept telling myself its all part of having a child and that its a phase, but that didn't change how emotionally draining it was. Particularly when it happened for a number of nights in a row. And just when I got my head around the fact that I was going to be the worst thing in the world and wouldn't be shown any love, a little red eyed, snotty nosed man said "I'm sorry Mummy" and the roller coaster ride began all over again......