Temper, Temper

There’s a reason the twos are referred to as terrible. And it’s because they have to be called that in the name of accuracy. I know some people say two is not some evil threshold that, once crossed, leads to a place of bizarre brat behavior and three-alarm fits. But they have either never met a two year-old, are in massive denial, or both. That first even number birthday is D-Day (as in drama) for the battles to come. No piece of clothing they have to wear, should wear, or you want them to wear will be donned without and until a meltdown of cataclysmic proportions. Sharing is like being burned with acid. Bed, bath, and beyond are contact sports. What they ate yesterday with relish and abandon will prompt a screamfest today if it is even suggested, or, god forbid, placed in front of them on a plate that was their favorite at breakfast but is now a loathed albatross from which they must escape. And so on. Virtually every moment of every thousand-hour day. It makes sense--they are big enough and aware enough to have preferences but too small to get what they want most of the time--but it sure is tough for the big people who have to ride the conniption roller coaster on a regular basis. In Edna Mitchell Preston’s The Temper Tantrum Book, all the baby animals in the jungle are expressing their frustration. And every living thing in a ten-mile radius knows about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Temper-Tantrum-Book-Mitchell-Preston/dp/0140501819

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/author/Preston,%20Edna%20Mitchell

Opposite Day

Living with a two year-old can make you feel psychotic sometimes. Never mind the sleep deprivation and mind-numbing repetition that come along with those in the terrible time, the sheer lunacy of their every-day-is-opposite-day mindset will drive you over the edge. We spend the first year of any child’s life anxiously engaged in the business of teaching them to talk, and then once they can, they use their new skill for the Dark Side and start busting out opinions and preferences all over the place. Which wouldn’t be so terrible if there were some consistency to them. But bi-polar mind-changing is the toddler name of the game. The only guarantee in the whole process is that, regardless of what they liked yesterday or five minutes ago, whatever you want them to do or eat or wear will be the very thing they have just decided they will never do and it becomes a fight to the (metaphoric, hopefully) death. And you can’t win because even though you are big enough to force them to get dressed or eat breakfast or stay in the carseat, an obstinate, hysterical two year-old puts up a fuss no one can ignore. Those little suckers will even turn down something they want--a movie, a story, a bath--just to assert their independence and not go gentle into that dark night of giving in. In Rita D. Gould’s Disney Babies at the Big Circus, Mickey and friends show kids what “opposite” means. Like they didn’t already know.

http://www.amazon.com/Disney-Babies-Big-Circus-Opposites/dp/B000AO2O9Q

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Rita-D-Gould/author/