... and Mr. Hyde

11:12 PM Posted In , , Edit This 0 Comments »
This all came out in a local mothering board when I responded to another mama of a screamer-boy, so I thought I'd post it here. Ironic v. the last post. My boy is 17 months and the screaming is really pushing me over the edge. I'm kind of hoping that 3 or 4 will be the age where some rationale starts creeping in to control the screaming. My first was such an angel and he is just the polar opposite in every way, so high strung. I know physically what would get him to stop, and that would be the equivalent of him becoming my conjoined twin. It is such a struggle to do precisely the things that should take a minute or two; making coffee, getting dressed, leaning forward from the couch to pick something up; these are the things that make him go apeshit like I'm hurting him. "What? Mommy needs to perform a simple action independently? There'll be none of that!" I mean, sometimes moving in slow motion and talking to him about what I'm going to do and maintaining eye contact helps, but mostly if he even just feels the currents shift; my body starting to move away or if the word "go" or "I just need" is in what I'm saying to him, it's enough to elicit the dreaded ear piercing shrieking. It's some kind of insanely hopped up separation anxiety. The quicker the needed task, the more indignant his reaction.

my son

2:20 PM Posted In , , , , Edit This 0 Comments »


I'm so proud of my son. He's outside, barefoot, wandering around in the great world of our back yard. Every few minutes I hear a jubilant exclamation, "Whoah! Ahhhhhh!" or sometimes "Ball!" He stoops down, his diapered butt sticking out, to extract a blade of grass stuck between his little toes. He toddles over to the hedges and methodically tears every leaf off a branch. Then he climbs into the toy car, closing the door behind him, and Flintstones it backwards over the basketball court. And sensing that I'm straying from my web design work to blog about him, he makes a beeline to me, demanding "muuhh", whereupon it takes me 10 minutes to type this last sentence because he keeps rabbit-kicking my typing arm away as he nurses and stops to babble earnest fake words at me.