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Tantrums and tears..

Boo turned 3 at the end of June, and I rather naively thought that milestone might mean a step away from tantrums. Oh how wrong I seem to have been. Far from stepping away from them, they seem to have got worse!!
To any one who knows me, this blog post may come as a surprise, as I like to live under the impression that my children fell out of a children’s book, they are perfect, never cry, never scream…and I choose to walk about in a state of ‘dragged through the hedge backwards’ it is called style not ‘slummy Mummy’ honest..

Boo’s tantrums have peaked, they are at the stage where he takes delight in screeching at the top of his voice ‘I don’t care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ when Mr G says anything to him in an attempt to calm him..Mr G doesn’t see the funny side and I can see him visibly turning a strange shade of beetroot as he approaches our little Tasmanian devil (who by this stage is usually spinning around waving his arms like rotor blades by this point) for a second attempt at negotiation.My attitude is to just ignore these moments and carry on as normal even though I’m being followed by my little devil and deluged with such articulate language as ‘I don’t like you, you’re horrid, yukky Mummy yukky!’ Of course this is harder to ignore when combined with the rotor blade arm moments which hit my arms and legs surprisingly hard, and often try to take out jars of pickled beetroot or whatever is nearest us in the shop/house/(insert name of any public venue..).

I have concluded that I’m not sure there is a ‘right’ way to handle these tantrums, surely it is more about survival, and proving to my little devil that actually his behaviour is not very nice and certainly won’t get him rewarded with the ice cream/comic/attention he is craving. I’ll be honest, I find these tantrums quite distressing, I want to curl up on the floor and well..transport myself to another world where I live in an immaculate house and the children are dressed in white linen (perfectly pressed of course). Funnily enough, it is that image which retains my calm even when we have started to grow a huge audience to one of these tantrums, I think to myself…’ahhhh white linen suits, a white sofa and fresh white walls…in my idyllic beach house’ take a deep breath and try to detach myself from the situation. This certainly works better than my initial reaction which is to shriek at the top of my voice ‘Oh god stop you’re humiliating me! This is worse than when my Mum came and collected me from the disco at 8pm when everyone else was allowed to stay til 11pm!’

As soon as the rampage of shrieking stops, I’m greeted with floods of tears hugs and ‘I’m sorry Mummy, I’m sorry for screaming and being naughty’. Which make me feel terrible, as I’m often still none the wiser what caused the upset to begin with, was he tired? did i not offer him enough attention? was I making to much fuss of baby? Yesterday I asked him what had caused him to get so cross, he replied ‘I felt angry Mummy’ so i asked why he felt angry and he replied ‘Because Mummy is very naughty and didn’t let me have an ice lolly’ I sighed and explained why I’d said No and he nodded (sticking his bottom lip right out as though he were about to bawl again). Is this what all his temper tantrums are about right now I wonder? Learning that he can’t have everything? Does this mean I’ve been spoiling him so far? When Baby arrived Boo did get showered in presents from everyone, as I didn’t want presents for the baby so they gave him a present instead? Is this my fault?! Yikes..what to do..