Taming The Tempest

I have a mutiny on my hands! The little monster has acquired a new skill. A set of spectacular tantrums have been witnessed around the home in the past week or two. I was expecting it at the magic age of two, thought that I had seen them actually, and that in the two years since then, I was confident that the foundation of good responsible behaviour had been laid. I did not exactly sit back and stretch my arms out on couch backrests (I love to do that, I feel like I AM THE KING!! when I do that), but, yes, I did feel moments of some comfort that despite being such a crazy person myself my child seemed to behave itself in most situations.

But now its MELTDOWN time. I am getting to a point where I am reluctant to step out in public with this mutinous monster. I kid a little of course, but it has acquired this temper for sure. Brows knit, little hands on its hips, it stomps around the house going NO I WON'T DO THAT. I DON'T LIKE THAT. Although I do feel like having a good chortle at it, after the third of fourth time of telling her to do something and her giving me lip, I lose it and give a nice yell. That results in a nice session of loud plaster-shattering cries that Bianca Castafiore would have been proud of. Volumes of tears flow down. If I ignore it, the cries crescendo out and stop after a while. If I react they subside immediately but no amount of reasoning will completely put a stop to them. The chances of relapse are fairly high. Of course, the option of just giving in does not particularly arise except in rare situations when I go with the 'don't sweat the small stuff' philosophy.

I am tolerating some of it, ignoring parts of it, having long chats sometimes if she is in a pliant mood later, losing my own cool and throwing my very own special tantrum (when I think I can get away with it, or when I am really really tired), but the best bet is actually humour! I laugh at myself, how worked up a four year old can make me. How I am having this conversation with her that is going nowhere.

"So this red dress looks nice right?"

"NO THIS RED DRESS IS BORING. VAAK"

"But this is your favourite thing. Perfect for school"

"NO ITS NOT PERFECT. I DON'T WANT IT. VAAK VAAK VAAK"

"Hey thats quite enough now. Stop it right now. Here wear this"

"NO I WON'T"

So by this time it is quite clear to me that I have two choices (a) Give In and Let Her Wear What She Wants or (b) Give a Tight Slap and Beat Her Into Submission. Not much to do with these choices cause I never hit her so it would be quite useless to do so especially when she is feeling so rebellious. And she does not particularly know what it is she wants to wear, just that it cannot be what Amma has picked out. Which, come to think of it, is quite funny (and possibly quite smart of her considering my non-existent fashion skills). Much to my own mum's discomfiture, I have thrown open her cup-board, she is welcome to rifle through it and pick up things she would like to wear. But she is just such a chick, I swear, she can never decide what it is she wants!

It is the same with going anywhere, doing, eating anything as well. I say one thing and she completely goes ballistic. I dread teenage all over again. The only good thing out of all of this is that I get to periodically throw tantrums, mutter to myself fuck this shit I swear I am going to slap this child, and generally yell and scream. Its good tension release, its been a while now, have been sitting with this stick up my mommy ass...