Toddlers and Tantrums: One Time Out at a Time

I can barely speak in coherent sentences today because Big V left me alone to deal with the toddler. As in he went to the ball field to play softball.

All. Day. Long.

Saturday AND Sunday.

From 8am until 6pm.

Both days.

Absolutely I'm bitter. Like you have to ask?

The kid is going to be two on Friday but I wasn't going to say anything because things happen when kids turn two. But someone must have told him because he quickly put two and two together and came up with terrible two's which he has ramped into overdrive.

I put that kid in a time out roughly 587 times this weekend.

I tried to be all Super Nanny consistent about it, silently cussing Big V's life and soul while attempting to appear nonchalant and aloof that my not quite two year old was screaming hysterically, kicking his feet and pounding his fists on the wall while perched on a time out stool. (And I put that blasted timer on 2 minutes, people, each and every time.)

And then....

Dotter was laying on the couch playing with her Nintendo DS. Her fault for being so low to the ground. Next time I'll have her lounge on top of the piano. Anyway, I spy Cletus the Used to be Fetus Now Complete Terror look at her from across the living room. And his eyes glinted. Yes, there was a glint. And then the right side of his mouth flinched ever so slightly...

Off and running he sped across the room, both arms out in front of him, and with both hands he grabs Dotter's hair... and I mean grabs. He's pulling and yanking, and she's screaming for her life while trying to wail on him with an electronic device and he throws his head back and laughs. He's laughing while she's screaming while he's pulling while I'm yelling Stop it! Stop it! Let go of her hair! while attempting to pry his sweaty paws open and untangle her hair.

I know it probably sounds like I was having the time of my life, but ... I wasn't.

I threw Cletus into his crib, gobs of hair hanging from his fingers, and went back to comfort Dotter and try to convince her that bald is beautiful... when the Teen Bean told me I was so mean for throwing the baby in a major time out because, as she put it, he doesn't know what he's doing! He's just a baby!

"Just" a baby my Aunt Fanny. That boy had a glint! And the start of a sneer! No; he had control of the sneer which is so much more dangerous.

Come with me....

We walked into the bedroom where Cletus was sitting on the edge of his mattress, chubby little legs dangling through the crib slats, head resting forward, hands curled around the slats above his head... a pathetic baby jail scene to say the least (and yet he looked so gosh darn cute).

I turned on the light and he looked quickly up at me, all smiles and grins - "Hi, Mama!" Such a cheerful fellow. (I want to eat his chubby cheeks!)

"Do you know why I put you in time out?" I ask, still playing the part of the stern mother.

He puts his right hand on top of his head: "Mimi...hair...ow..." He frowns and his eyes are full of sorrow. (Oh my gosh; I want to kiss him!)

I turn to the Bean, "He absolutely knows what he's doing."

"Oh my god... that's so scary..."

I know. Trust me, I know....