Child's Plate Special: Bratwurst

That title is supposed to be funny. Let me know how it goes over. Why did I choose it? Because I woke up yesterday morning and realized that, while I was working to help pay for property taxes and non-GMO food, my beautiful toddler has morphed into something of a problem.

Toddlers throw tantrums. That's just a fact. My first, for whom this blog was started, threw his share of fits, trust me. I learned that there are just some places one doesn't take an inquisitive three-year-old; for instance, the Half-Price Books that takes up an entire city block. I didn't go back for a year after E's nuclear meltdown there. All in all, though, E could go pretty much everywhere with me, no problems. And I never realized how manageable E was until now, thanks to little brother J.

J is a little over two-and-a-half right now, and he's going through some things. He's getting over a slight chest infection, for which he's taking antibiotics (which, as we all know, make kids crazy). He throws up in the morning if he doesn't eat a big enough dinner; nothing like a plume of regurgitated water and mucus at 6:15AM to set the tone for the day. He's also being tested and treated for a third issue, which at the time of writing has no name...because no one knows what it is. More tests are needed.

In a nutshell, the kid feels like ass. And feeling like ass is one of the Top Three Causes of Brattiness, in humans of all ages. But it's not an excuse for ALL of his behavior, which, now that I've been thinking about it, has been going on for several months. Nor is it a reason for me to allow the behavior to continue.

Our days are filled with screams. And tantrums. And screaming tantrums, and sweaty-hot crying tantrums, and windmilling arms and legs. And a lot of time-outs. When I say "our days are filled," I mean that these things happen all day long. Repeatedly. J rarely makes it through an hour without a tantrum right now, and that is cause for concern.

By the time E comes home from school, I am so drained from dealing with J that I end up not being able to handle the older kid effectively, and that's not fair. The screams continue into the late afternoon and evening, and the next thing I know, E's ability to handle himself has gone completely down the toilet, too. And then I start yelling and dreaming of ways to sock away enough money in a week's time to get on a plane and never come back (right now I have enough to make it to Amarillo--look out, Texas Panhandle!). Sometimes in my dream I take E with me; sometimes I pick up a hottie who looks just like Gerard Butler, or Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

And the worst part is, I feel like I'm at odds with everyone else around me, my support group, because most people's first instinct is to give J whatever he wants to stop the screaming. I'm constantly slapping the hands of my fellow adults as they trip over themselves to pacify my little con artist, and it is driving me up the wall.

Kids want their way, and they figure out how to get it. If the primary caregiver is vigilant, and productive in approaching this, it won't last long. With E, it felt like it lasted forever, but in truth it was less than a year. J is a different story. I've been working for the past two years, part-time, and we employee an in-house nanny whom we love. J has her on a short leash, and I've tried many times to explain to her how he needs to be dealt with. But she's like everyone else: she can't take the screaming.

We were at E's tee-ball game last Monday, and J began to scream because he was separated from E by the chain-link fence. Before I could bust out an Effective Parenting Maneuver, G whipped out his iPhone and let J watch Scooby-Doo. This wouldn't be a problem for me, except that eventually the iPhone has to go back in Papi's pocket, and the tantrum that follows is TEN TIMES WORSE than the original tantrum for which the iPhone was provided as balm. So I'm walking with J, speaking to him firmly but quietly, "I know you can control yourself. Calm and quiet. Control yourself now." I know it sounds weird, but it works surprisingly well for him. Only it didn't work so well this time, because suddenly there's my sweet grandfather, waving a camera case in J's face, saying, "Here! Here J! Take this! Play with this!" This made the tantrum worse, as it ALWAYS does, because the only thing J dislikes more than not getting his own way, is being appeased with a crappy substitute. I nearly had my own meltdown.

Here's the line, for me: why can't a kid scream? What harm will come to them, if they express their displeasure with being denied a desire and the adults don't scramble to quell the noise? Yes, there are times and places where screaming is inappropriate, and for those cases the course of action is different. I leave places all the time right now, because J has decided to let loose his vocal thunder and I am powerless to stop it without bribery and/or duct tape. These instances are not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the majority of the time when a screamer is holding us hostage, in a situation where time can be taken to think and act. How are children supposed to learn that screaming won't get them their way, if we just react with the view of shutting them up? J has received nothing but validation for his bad behavior for at least a year now, and I'm guessing it's going to take roughly the same amount of time to undo the damage. I also predict a Family Size Come to Jesus Talk, where I officially ask my family to stop contributing to my son's brattiness.

Interspersed at ever-lessening intervals are displays of unimaginable sweetness. He'll come up behind me and tug my ponytail, saying, "Mami hair." That's my cue to take it down so he can play with it. He'll run his fingers through it, covering my face with it and then sweeping it away with heart-wrenching gentleness. "Beautiful, Mami," he says, and his thumb goes in his mouth, and his head goes on my shoulder. Like all children, J is capable of the most incredible moments of affection and love, and he is very capable of controlling himself, and it is these traits that I want so badly to restore to the norm.