Meltdown

The Terrible Twos I was expecting. The Twice as Terrible Threes people warned me about. Why did no one mention the Flaming Awful Fours?

I'm positive that there are both reasons and cures for the current bout of uncontrollable meltdowns we seem to be facing, and talking to other mums, we're not facing them alone. Squeaky has only been in full time school less than a term, even though she had a year of part time before that, so she's tired. She's in a class with a handful of children she knows well and a whole lot she doesn't, so that's caused a bit of upheaval. They have more structure to their day in the reception class than they did in nursery, so that transition is hard.  And while she is getting older and more able to express her wishes, she's still very young and unable to control her emotional responses correctly.

Do not be fooled. Meltdown in 20 seconds

This all leads to the kind of meltdown we had the other evening. Tears running down her face, snot bubbles, wailing and kicking on the floor because her friend Boy Next Door wasn't home to play out with her. Highlights included 5 minutes of melodramatic gulping breaths, and the phrase "I have been waiting for this day for weeks." Even though she and Boy Next Door had cooked up this play date of their own accord without telling either mum involved, and they had other plans.  I couldn't even face offering Frozen as an alternative because if I'm asked one more time if I wanna build a snowman, I'm going to scream myself.  And me having a screaming meltdown isn't something anyone really wants to see.

I'm trying to return to the tips I learned in parenting class, rewarding the positives to reinforce positive behaviours get attention, but it's really difficult when positive behaviours mean I can get on with everything else that needs to be done around the house. In fact, I tried some of the techniques on Daddy, but he's less impressed with playing bubbles if he sits at the table and eats his tea, or receiving Pound Shop tat in reward for putting his clothes away nicely.

Not enough reward for Daddy

So what's the answer? Aside from staying calm myself, and trying my best not to laugh (you've got to admit tantrums can look pretty hilarious, but it just makes matters worse), I'm working on reassuring her when there's something behind the meltdown, but when the end of the world has been brought about simply by wearing shoes to leave the house, my patience can only stretch so far.

Every parent I've spoken to on this subject seems to be experiencing the same thing, so it's not just Squeaky, or something I'm doing wrong, but once again I'm left looking for the instruction book that the midwives seem to forget to give me when they handed over my squeaking newborn baby.  Not so newborn any more, but still causing just as much upheaval.  There were no less than 3 babies in our office the other week, with a combined age of less than a year. Oh, so little and squishy, I swear you could hear people getting broody, but honestly not me. There's too many things I don't miss about having a new baby around the place, and chances are They wouldn't give me the instructions then, either.  I wouldn't swap these days for a newborn for the world, but sometimes I just need answers.

Why?

We've been suffering from the Whys for a while, I think Squeaky picked them up in nursery, much the same as the Chicken Pops.  Whys are extremely contagious, once one child has contracted the Whys, they will spread it to all their friends, acquaintances, and even other children that they just pass by from the comfort of a Tesco's trolley seat with remarkable efficiency.

There is no known cure for the Whys.  Calpol can help to counter some of the more unpleasant aspects, but must be administered to the parent or carer, rather than the child. Gin is somewhat more effective, but must be taken with extreme care, or unintended side effects may include tears, headaches, and actually telling the child "why" in no uncertain terms.

On a more serious note, why (ha ha ha) do all our "Why?" conversations seem to end up in an unending cycle of "Why?", "I don't know", "Why?", "Because I'm not very clever", "Why?", "Because I didn't pay enough attention at school", "Why?" ad infinitum.  We spent our whole car journey home from nursery today discussing why my car was clean and daddy's car wasn't.  The reason being I went through the car wash over the weekend, and he didn't.  Why?  Because my car was dirty. Why? Because I hadn't washed it. Why? Because I was at work. Why? To earn money to buy you nice things. Why? Because otherwise you can't have nice things. Why? Because you have to pay for things. Why? Because otherwise that's stealing. Why? Because that's what it's called when you don't pay for something. Why? I don't know...  and the cycle begins.

If anyone has a surefire cure for the Whys that doesn't involve medicating one or other of us, I'd be really pleased to hear from you, and you could probably make your millions selling it.  Honestly, I would pay good money for a cure, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

ASDSFDASFDFSDFASF

No, it's ok. Squeaky isn't actually typing. She's too busy being naughty.

I went into the kitchen for 2 minutes this morning to make a coffee.  Came back into the living room to find someone looking very proud of herself, and a load of red wax crayon all over the wall. Pencil I could cope with, it rubs out, but wax crayon? ARGHGAHHHHASDASDFHG!

We're trying to sell this house at the moment as well. So guess who had the paintbrush out at 7.30 this morning trying to cover up wax crayon?  I was too cross to take a picture, but I'm sure you know what a naughty toddler & a crayon covered wall look like.  It's going to take another coat to cover it as well.  Not a happy mummy today.

It's just a phase

Those must be the four most annoying words in parenting.  "It's just a phase". Teething?  It's just a phase.  Waking at 3 am? It's just a phase.  Separation anxiety? It's just a phase.

Squeaky's latest phase is "What's That?" Addressed to pretty much everything.  Constantly, repeatedly, and to things that she already knows exactly what they are. It's just a phase I really hope passes quickly, because there's only so many times I can tell her what the tap is before I'm going to go bonkers. It's a tap. It's a tap, it's a tap.  A tap, lovey. It's still a tap. It continues to be a tap. It's STILL the flipping tap, for goodness sake.

I swear, the next time someone says "it's just a phase" to me, I'm going to spend the next half hour saying "whassat?" to them without stopping for breath & see how they like the phase.

Frustration

Wasn't that a game?  My brain has just developed an earworm of an advertising jingle consisting of the words "Frustration - from Action GT", who I know were a kids' games manufacturer in the 1980's.

Anyway, that's not the point. Busy busy busy day at work today, I've no idea where the day went, and I'm on a course for the next two days, so I won't be in the office til next Monday now (hooray!)  Drove to work just fine, drove off to visit my clients, and back to the office, no problem. Into town, stopped at the post box, to the shops, then home.  All without incident.  Had a nice quiet half hour catching up with emails before heading back out to pick up Squeaky from nursery.  And the car won't start.  Stupid stupid stupid car.  It's been doing this more & more of late. The garage can't find anything wrong, it's an intermittent fault and it intermits itself away when faced with an oil covered mechanic in overalls.

I spent 25 minutes trying to start the stupid car, getting progressively more annoyed with it, then reached the point where I had to make a decision, because I was going to be late to the nursery.  So I legged it out of the road, through the village to the main bus stop, where there's a bus every 10 minutes rather than every half hour.  Waited for the bus, found myself as far as humanly possible from the nursery whilst still in sight of the place, ran across the muddy field & gathered up Squeaky, who was patiently waiting in the Big Kids Room, with chocolate cornflake cakes.  She's used to going home in the car. so she was very unimpressed that there was no car, and no pushchair either (I honestly didn't have time to gather one up), and that she had to walk sensibly or be carried to the bus stop & wait for the local bus (I wasn't carrying her through the two villages, and it was threatening to rain.

So of course.  We had a real, proper temper tantrum.  Screaming, howling, kicking. The kind of behaviour where you normally look the other way and think to yourself "Thank goodness they're not my child". Except, she is my child.  I just about managed to placate her with numerous verses of Row Row Row Your Boat before the bus came, and then as many verses as I could manage of The Wheels On The Bus while we were being The People On The Bus.  And give her her due, she didn't struggle while I carried her up the steps from the main road to our street.  Chocolate cornflake cake reward well earned in the end.

I've never seen her behave that badly though, and I hope it's not the start of things to come.  Hopefully it was just a combination of tiredness and frustration that I didn't let her run everywhere.  No more tantrums please.