There must be a secret handbook delivered to all children on their second birthday via a similar system as the tooth fairy. I thought for sure that if we were always loving on Abby and talking to her calmly when she was upset or did something wrong that we could perhaps prevent this stage. Part of me still believes that. I find it so hard to accept that for the next 1-2 years I will just have a brat for a child and I refuse to just blame it all on her age. Being a nurse is amazing, but for me it is also a curse. Knowing what I know and seeing what I see, it is hard not to try and diagnose my child...daily. I want a reason for the way she is acting, not just an excuse.
While I will absolutely admit that this age can be very frustrating for a child which in turn can lead to some epic tantrums and meltdowns, I also believe that there is a reason behind everything if we are willing to do the research before allowing our tempers to match that of our child.
Over the past several weeks, Abby just turned 2 a few weeks ago, Abby has gone through quite a bit. Nothing serious mind you, but lots of little things that could wear on most adults, let alone a toddler. Let's first look at her birthday and the events surrounding it. First of all I disrupted her sleep at 4am, removed her from her cozy bed and placed her in a car seat so we could make the 10 hour drive to Kansas for the occasion. While she did remain mostly asleep through this transition, I don't sleep well sitting up so why would I think a 2 year old can. She did pretty good and slept the first 4 hours of the trip and then we made our first gas and potty stop. It was just the two of us for this leg of the journey, Jason had to meet us the next day. Because of this there was no one to play with and entertain Abby on the drive. She still did remarkably well and we made it, just in time to take her out of a car seat and tell her it was nap time. Raise your hand if you think this went smoothly. Put your hands down! Some might view the resistance that I met as age related. I would say it is completely understandable for any human being to not want to sit for 10 hours just to be told to go to bed without running around and stretching their legs, not a result of the TT's.
The weekend went very smoothly until the drive home. Jason was with us so I sat in the back to play with Abby. Our 10 hour trip became a 12.5 hour trip due to traffic and construction and we lost an hour due to timezones. Use your imagination to paint this picture, it shouldn't be hard. Again, TT's or crappy situation?
We return and develop a cough. But when do we cough? Mostly at night, prohibiting restful sleep, resulting in a crabby child. TT's or normal behavior for any human who doesn't get good rest for several nights in a row?
We are finally getting over the cough and enter belly problems. We had her 2 month check up when we got back and one concern was Abby's abnormally large #2's. There is that number again, forget about unlucky 13, 2 is starting to get a pretty bad rap at our house! The doc suggested a daily sprinkling of Miralax to at least soften everything up so she doesn't have hemorrhoids before she's 3! 4 days after starting this regimen, (4 is a multiple of 2, just sayin') Abby stops pooping. Hmmm, before laxative pooping, after laxative no pooping, awesome. So now we have a constipated 2 year old. On day 3 with no progress we were about to have to take extreme measures. Her belly must have known because the dam broke! Funnily enough, right after that her mood got a little better. Not so fast, lets add a stomach virus so that we can wake up 3 times that same night and vomit, everywhere. Followed by 2 days of the opposite of constipation. Would you be in a good mood? Would you eat all of your supper? Would you cry for apparently no reason?
Now these things are obvious causes of crabbiness. What about the subtle causes that get missed and result in blaming the TT's? Abby has been pretty sensitive lately and cries at the drop of a hat, or the word "no." I start to think, must be the... hang on a second, why has she been putting her finger in her mouth? She is too old for that and never really did that before anyway, except when she was... Ah ha! We take a peak and sure enough her 2nd molars are coming in. Do I need to point out which molars again or do you see a trend?
So there is my rant. Yes she is testing limits and exploring and trying to push boundaries but is she really doing this to make us mad and get her little tush popped? No. The tantrums and meltdowns are because something has upset her, whether we feel it is valid or not, and we need to allow her to feel and express herself the way she currently knows how to. We can calmly try to redirect her and talk to her and explain that there are better ways to do things and just be understanding of what is going on in our sweet, precious, currently possessed by the devil, child!
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