I had heard about the terrible twos. Heck, I thought I had experienced them. But ohhhh no. Oh no no no no no.
I have been misinformed on many counts. I thought this was a period of mild defiance, with maybe a tantrum thrown here and there for effect. I thought this was something I might not have to experience at all. My Thalia? My sweet, loveable, charming funny little girl? Nah.
Crow: Tastes a whole lot like chicken.
What no one told me is that terrible is just understated spin, a false description offered in lieu of the more accurate (although less alliterative) appalling or egregious, a lie propagated to keep the childless from remaining so. Certainly humanity as we know it would die out, Children of Men style, should the general population catch wind of what’s in store for them a mere 30 months after labor and delivery. Like hemorrhoids aren’t deterrent enough.
This stage is fact not the terrible twos, or even the egregious twos. It is nothing short of Toddler PMS.
(Has anyone ever called it this before? I ‘m sure they have. And they’d be accurate.)
Or perhaps it’s just a case of satanic posession. Neither would be hard for me to believe, although I would like a firm diagnosis so I know whether to call an exorcist or pump Thalia full of Motrin and crank up the Sarah McLaughlin music.
I want something to eat mommy.Okay, would you like ravioli? The fun ones, shaped like stars and hearts?
Noooo! NO RAVIOLI! WAHHHH!!! RAVIOLIIIII! NOOOOOO! I DON’T WANT TO EAT RAVIOLIIIIIII AUGHHHHHH!
Oh I’m sorry, did I say “live earthworms in a pool of monkey brains?” I swear, I thought I said ravioli. Sometimes I confuse them.
(sniff, sob) I want cereal.No sweetie, cereal is for breakfast. What else can I get you?
CEREALLLLLLL! WAHHHHHH!! CE. RE. ALLLLLLLLL!!!!
How about a peanut butter sandwich?
NOOOOOOO…. WAHHHHH! I W-W-WANT CEREAL.
You can cut it yourself.
(sniff) Yes. I want a sandwich. (sniff) I want to go cut it. (brightly) Carry me mommy! Carry me and I will cut the sandwich all by myself!
The spirit is willing but the feet are weak.
I want to spread the peanut butter on the bread. Then I want to lick the peanut butter off the knife.No sweetie, no licking off…
WAHHHHHH! I WANT TO LICK IT OFF THE KNIFE!
Fine, fine. You can lick the knife. (Am I a pushover parent?)
NO!!!! I DON’T WANT TO LICK THE KNIFE!!!! NOOOOOOO WAHHHHHHH!!!
Okay! Don’t lick the knife! Geez. Fine. I’m going to give you some carrots with that.
NOOOOO! CARROTTSSSSS!!! WAHHHHH! NOOOOOO!!
Or melon?
Melon! I like melon! I want some melon. I want some melon! So good. Can I cut it?
Sure. Of course. I’m glad you’re happy. Here’s the knife…
NOOOO….I WANT CARROTTTTSSSSSS! I DON’T WANT TO CUT THE MELON. WAHHHHHHH! I WANT CEREAL! CARRY ME! WAHHHHH!
It’s especially fun when you throw a baby into the mix. Fortunately Sage is a good-natured one. At least during daylight hours. But there was a moment tonight in which I did have to insist that only one child was permitted to cry at a time.
And just in time for preschool interviews. Good times.
85 shards of brilliance… read them below or add one
The one child cries at a time rule is a standing rule in our home. I look like a shining star of a mother when I’m out and telling my children that at the grocery store.No one will EVER call me a pushover parent. “Your brother is crying and remember if he’s crying, you can’t, so just hold it in until we get home.”Everyone has already said that “3″ is a bitch, and that’s mainly because not only do they have PMS but they have the total and complete verbal skills (I don’t like you mommy, go away, I’m never coming out of my room) to go with it.
I can’t wait until she’s thirteen and comes back from gymnastics camp with Pre-Teen PMS. Save this post. It’ll remind you how easy it used to be!
The best advice that I have for dealing with the terrible 2-3′s is this: pick your battles carefully and when you do pick one, stick to your guns. Be consistent in how you react to their tantrums. Personally, whenever my kids (now 11 and 7) would throw a tantrum in a store or restaurant, I would pick them up and leave. (pay the bill first, of course!) I had no qualms about leaving a basket of groceries at the customer service desk. By removing my kids from the situation I didn’t feel as embarrassed and I could deal with them more calmly. My kids would still scream and have their fit but it was in a safe environment, not lying on the floor of the store or screaming in a cart, where I could help them settle down. I discovered early on that the tantrums subsided quicker when they didn’t have the attention of an entire restaurant or the sales floor of Walmart. Full blown tantrums can’t be ignored but requests for something out of the ordinary for a meal or a snack are just their way of trying to get some control over their life and schedule. Sometimes you need to let them win.
How is it that I have three kids and never heard the “toddler PMS” phrase before?! It’s perfect! And for me the terrible twos started at 18 months and continued well into and beyond 3 years old. I’m in the thick of it right now with my 2 1/2 year old and I’m losing my mind!
It appears we are living parallel lives with our similarly aged toddlers
Sigh. I remember it well. The good news is, that for me to say that, that phase must be OVER and I must still be LIVING. Which is not to say my house is tantrum-free (in fact my 8YO just had a tantrum over wanting cereal earlier this week) but at least we’ve all toughened up a bit and can laugh about it now.
I call this “Control Freaking.” My 6 year old will still do it on occasion, usually over food, sometimes over clothes. We went through about a year (around age 3)when we would give him a choice only to have him completely freak out after he made his choice, saying that he now he wanted the opposite of what he asked for. You can do things to try to avoid the tantrums, but you can’t back down if she decides to throw one. In general though, this is a definite phase, and it does end.
I’d like to say that it goes away. But those little kiddos just figure out other ways to get what they want (even when what they want changes every fraction of a second). If you have a camcorder, you should so record one of her meltdowns. That is so much better to so her boyfriend when she’s a teen than the naked photos.
no what theyreally don’t tell you is 33 is worse
This is the first time I leave a comment as I’m not a blogger but I enjoy reading your blog a lot…my son is slightly younger than your daughter and I’ve gotta tell you, all of a sudden it’s like living with a psycopath in our house. Someone calls this stage “primary adolescence”. It makes sense. I fear going home after work these days….I know how you feel….I hope we both make it through
hey, first time here…Wow, that is hilarious to read. I am crying at my desk in work. People are looking at me. The Bear, my nearly 4 year old (it doesn’t stop at 2!), is suddenly into grunting when a question is posed that is met with disapproval. Kids really are completely psychotic.
That was so accurate! Loved it!My youngest is almost 3 and the DRAMA is about to drive us nuts! My husband even asked if it was a stage. I hope this is not an indicator of what she will be like as a teenager.
Bossy thinks she may be approaching her Terrible Forty-Twos.
Oh dear. At least your PMSing toddler has things like carrots, melon and even pb&j sandwiches in her diet. You would think the world had just come to a horrific end dare I even mention anything other than chicken nuggets and mandarin oranges. For lunch AND dinner for the last 2 years. NOT KIDDING. oh, but to let you know, it really does get better. Oh, and then a little worse. What will puberty have in store?
Hello Liz!I love your blog. Am an Indian blogger with a six month old baby girl. And um, now you’ve got me really dreading the inevitable ‘Toddler PMS’. Am linking up to your blog, hope that’s okay. Take care and good luck!
I was reading your post and wondering why anyone would tell the two year old no cereal for lunch. Then I remembered that Thalia is #1. All the arbitrary adult-centered rules concerning what we will eat and when have been completely thrown out the window by the various toddlers in my house. Anything, dear god, to stop the screaming.
I have to agree with those above….the 3′s are so! much! worse! It can be basically summed up in the sentence “Noooothing is riiiiight”. A wrinkle in their sock. Using the wrong brush on their hair. Not reading their minds properly. The only cure is turning 4…..which takes a year from onset of the terrible 3′s.
This is so familiar! Not to mention laugh out loud funny. When my 3 year old was two (that is to say – last year) he threw a tantrum every time we had to leave the house (he’d scream about getting his snowsuit on, he’d scream about arriving at our destination, he’d scream about having to leave again, etc…)To the point where I started to develop a bad case of toddler-onset agoraphobia.
I’m right there with ya. Just got back from a biz trip and here’s my son:Mama! Mama! (hugs me with big smiles, a few seconds late) My binky. My binky! MY BINKKY!!!!One minute he was all hugs and kisses then he freaked out because his binky fell on the ground… ahhh yes, I’m home now.
Although there is still the teenage PMS (and boys get it too) to look forward to, I sympathize with where you are at this point in time. Trying to figure out what a kid Thalia’s age might want or need is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. It’s like they have Toddler Alzheimers and the moment they express a desire and you answer it, they’ve forgotten what they’ve just said and now your offer of the thing they’ve just asked for is offensive and wrong. Get through those interviews and I promise that pre-school will help in more ways than you can possibly know.
I know it well, and my daughter’s not quite yet two. She’s acquired this new tone in her voice when she sometimes whines NO. There is a subtext to her nos that seems to say <>no, not only do you not understand what I want but I don’t really think you care which, by the way, makes you a bad father, and if I knew what I was getting myself into 21 months ago, I never would have left the womb.<>
DUDE. Living that nightmare RIGHT NOW.
Okay, good, so mine aren’t the only ones.
I think the one-crying-child policy should always be in effect.I agree with the PMS, but what if it’s a boy?
Ah, I just went through this whole scene yesterday too. It seems like the terrible twos, turns into awful threes, and then to chaotic fours. It is never ending. BTW, I have an award for you over at my blog.
I hate to admit it, but I sound just like that when I don’t get my afternoon cappuccino fast enough.
At least you’re warned about the 2′s. No one warned me about the threes. You know how when you read something you try to connect it to a life experience? I struggled with this somewhat when I crossed Dante’s Inferno. I no longer have any questions. I understand every one of the seven circles of hell now. I kept telling myself “just make it to 4. HOLY HELL…why doesn’t it end? I have two beautiful girls, ages 6.5 and 3.5. On the bright side, I hear there is a respite between 10 and 12 before you have to hold your breath and dive in again…to the quicksand they call the teens. I hear raising teenagers is like trying to nail jello to a tree (there’s really an article with that title…google it.) I can’t wait. Sorry I didn’t have more heartening news. But, at least you are not alone. Dawn
there is star shaped ravioli?!?!?!
Gosh, my 6 year old can still act like that. Heck, my 10 year old can as well. I think PMS is alive & well in all females of any age, LOL. I’m glad mine were at least 4 years apart, made terrible twos AND threes a little bit easier.
To Dawn, I missed this before hitting submit. Sorry to tell you there is NO respite between 10 & 12. My daughter is 10 1/2 & it just gets worse. Maybe with boys there might be a break, but no, not with girls!!! LOLOh my oldest, wasn’t too bad at 2, but oh god, 3 was terrible!
I hate to say this, but… two was easy. Three fucking sucks. But on the up side – because I am not a total Debbie Downer – I have heard that children act like demons typically right around birthdays and half-years, and for us, that totally fits. 3 was hell. 3.5 was hell. In between were nice months. It could get better in a month! For a while.
Ha, I’ve had the EXACT same conversations with my 3yo, who is turning 4 next week. I’m hoping that his birthday puts an end to foolishness of this sort. Ya think?My husband and I were pulling our hair out over the contrariness factor, not just with food but with everything. On the advice of a friend I picked up a book about normal 3yo developmental milestones, and I cracked up when I saw the full title…“Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy?”It’s funny because it’s true.
So, she’s three – right? Because this conversation sounds DEAD on for the conversations I had with each of my three-year-old triplets tonight. Thank goodness my new baby is an easy one, too (at least during day light hours – although he keeps me up much of the night, argh). I have no doubt that it would be less painful to pull my bottom lip over the top of my head, then go through another year of this insanity.
Your post made me laugh and God knows I needed that! My daughter turns two in a couple of days and what you narrated, that could be me, that IS me and her so many times!I vacillate wildly between no-means-no-and-that’s-it and ok-this-one-time-only-this-once-ok?‘Terrible twos’ does not even begin to define what they put you through!
We experience the same thing. Normally my little girl is very laid back and easy going. Once a month (since infancy) there would be a week where she was a bear. We joked that it was PMS. Recently I started to realize that it coincided with my period. She becomes VERY emotional and VERY inflexible. I don’t have any answers, but your not alone.