Losing Her Shit

The Phi has started this new thing where she completely loses her shit. It had happened before, once at the house, but over vacation it happened 3 times. The first was in the middle of the night. About 4 am.

She would not calm down and we had to take her to the car so not to keep everyone up. She finally calmed down after about 45 minutes. Then she flipped out at the VC Fair on Sunday. She wanted to push her stroller, but it was too crowded and she had no control over the stroller so we didn't let her. She freaked. PR Dad put her back in the stroller and she screamed. A lot and very loudly. She finally calmed down when she went to look at the farm animals. These are what all the books call temper tantrums and according to everything I have read they are emotional outbursts that toddlers go through when they cannot deal with their own emotions. The books say that they are worse for the child than for the parents (that's hard to believe). Then yesterday at my sisters house she wanted to play with this baby stroller but we were getting ready to leave and she flipped out again. (Hmmm maybe we should just stay far far away from strollers) The books and articles say that you have to just ride these tantrums out. To basically ignore it until the kid calms down on their own. So much easier said than done. You are not suppose to yell or even acknowledge it. Never in my life have I had such a deep desire to yell at someone, so during these tantrums I have to bite my tongue, and I mean bite my tongue. I am waiting for it the bleed from all he biting. PR Dad has a much harder time ignoring her. He tries to talk to her and calm her down, but she is not hearing it. If I even look at her she yells louder. We need to figure out not only how to deal with these, but to avoid them all together without turning her into a spoiled brat who gets everything she wants because her parents are afraid of a tantrum. This new behavior comes at a bad time because baby #2 has been on my mind. More on that next post.