It ain't bad to get mad

Anonybabe is all about the temper tantrums these days - shaking her head "no" when we announce the need for a diaper change and then kicking and squirming when we lay her down on the changing table. We were at an outdoor festival when this happened yesterday and we gave up and gave her poopy butt one half-hearted swipe before tacking on a diaper as quickly as possible. (By all accounts it is way too early (or late) to try to leverage her diaper aversion into potty training, but that hasn't stopped me from weaving fantastical tales within her earshot about the day when she pees and poops on the potty and can throw off the fetter of diaper changes.)


She hits a thing that frustrates her - hits it repeatedly - while yelling at it.

"Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, AH," she yelled once while wailing on a piece of food she didn't want to eat. She stopped, breaking her angry trance for a moment to look up ant me, and then turned back to her beating with renewed vigor. "Ah ah ah ah AH AH AH."


Charming. There go my fantasies about having an even-tempered kid.


At first we chalked the outbursts up to teething, we could see where her gums were red and swollen in at least two places and she wasn't usually this fussy. But after two nights of uninterrupted sleep and ensuing playfulness, we had to face up to the fact that she was throwing her shit fits solely because she wanted to get her way OR ELSE, Dammit!


Part of me wants and welcomes a firecracker. Part of me thinks - oh shit! I'm doing something wrong and I'm raising a brat as a result. Part of me thinks there's nothing we can do to really change her so howdie doody do we have our work cut out for us helping her learn how to contain and/or channel her rage and impatience at not getting her way.


Not that her tantrums are that bad. She just hadn't had them hereto fore, and now I'm re imagining her future with a very different set of personality assumptions. That one little change changes her life trajectory so that she lands in a completely different spot in my imagination. With the wallop of a green bean she's gone from wallflower to potential domestic abuser.



And then Sesame Street reminds me.....