The Curse of Crankenstein

PREFACE: Please note that Incrediboy isn't a complete monster. He's actually a very good boy. The following just cites a few worst case scenario events, relayed here simply for amusement. :) Thank you and enjoy at my expense!

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Something disturbing is afoot in my home.

My sweet, adorable baby is being sporadically obsessed by an evil entity. Without warning and with greater and greater frequency, Incrediboy morphs into Captain Tantrum. On a hair trigger, he can go from zero to hellcat in about 1.2 seconds. The Terrible Twos have arrived.

He’s been really accelerating with the talking. One-word exclamations and short phrases are being replaced with long winding sentences. Some sentences are easily understood. Others can’t be deciphered with the Rosetta Stone. If he doesn’t feel like reiterating a thought he’s expressed and you don’t quite catch it the first few times, you’d better look out – a conniption may be in your immediate future.

This one’s kind of understandable, though. I mean, certainly it must be frustrating for him to try and communicate ideas and we just aren’t getting them. But other explosions are not so justifiable.

He loves for us to draw pictures with him on his Magnadoodle or his pad of paper. But if you select the wrong color crayon or don’t draw the moon in the designated area or place the nubbies on the tractor wheels just right, you’re going to have a spinning Tasmanian Devil on your hands.

On our daily commute, there is a stretch of road that has speed bumps. Sometimes he’s cool with the gentle jostling. Other times he blows his stack about the disturbance of the smooth sailing.

“I don’t WANT 'peed bumps!”

“I’m sorry honey, but they’re there. We have to go over them.”

Cue the grousing. I guess we should purchase a jackhammer and an asphalt grinder so as not to disrupt his majesty’s preferences. This is assuming he’s not already furious about having to deal with the shoulder straps in his car seat, another recently overly-magnified inconvenience for him.

Any time a clothing change is in order, there’s usually drama as well. Incrediboy has developed favorite items in his wardrobe. If you try to get them off of him before he’s ready, he’ll clamp into a ball tighter than a clam and wail like a police siren. Nevermind that he’s peed out of his diaper’s capacity overnight and has gotten it all over his pj’s, or has dribbled Spaghettio sauce all over his shirt and pants, or stuck his sleeve in the toilet up to the elbow, or has already worn it for 2 days. He wants to wear that garment till you have to peel it off with a paint scraper. Don’t even think about suggesting otherwise.

Since he was a little guy and first realized how fun splashing around in the water can be, bathtime has been an activity that is looked forward to and enjoyed. But recently, I’ve thanked the Heavens we’ve moved to the country – because otherwise the neighbors might call social services. I put my little angel in the tub and he screeches from start to finish as if I’m boiling him in oil. By the end of it all, he’s red faced and blotchy, Most Beautiful Dog looks as if someone’s been setting off firecrackers next to his head, and I’m ready for a straight shot of Everclear. Make it a double.

I then do my best to dry off the writhing octopus and get his diaper on in some reasonable fashion. I’m sternly instructed that I forgot the powder, and or the diaper cream, whether I have or not, and woe to us all if the proper butt-preparing steps are not fulfilled. PJ’s are struggled on with much protest, as it is realized these are not the same crusty clothes he had on before. Then, just like that, the delightful boy I once knew is back – he flits off, chortling and giggling. MBDog and I look at each other as if to say, what the heck just happened here?

Incrediboy has never been a picky eater. Until recently. Foods once loved – even ham and macaroni & cheese, which have ALWAYS been favorites - are now shunned, and the list of acceptable menu items is very short and ever-shifting. If you place an item on his plate that is not on his mental list of the moment, a fit of apoplexy ensues. And suddenly, when he used to eat happily at the same time as Momma and Daddy, he now vehemently protests any suggestion that he stops for dinner until about an hour after we’re through, and sometimes as late as almost bedtime. We’ve thought fleetingly of coming down on a firm eat-now-or-wait-till-breakfast rule, but feel he’s a little young for that yet. We don’t want to put him to bed hungry at his age.

He’s NOT too young to be consciously testing us though. Obviously. It’s infuriating for all of us.

While I’m an easygoing gal, I’m not an advocate of children calling the shots in a home. Sometimes you do what you can to keep the peace. Other times you have to crack down on the fits and let them work it out within themselves (while putting everyone else through temporary hell). Most of all you have to be consistently consistent. Which is excruciatingly tedious and no fun. At all.

You should have seen the look on Hub’s face when I told him that pretty much everyone I’ve consulted has told me this stage often lasts a couple years or more while they learn to control their id and learn proper manners and patience, even with rank pulling, hand smacking and butt cracking.

Lord deliver us from the Terrible Twos.