The smile at the end of a tantrum

Today I had one of those moments where I could fall to the floor in tears wondering where I went wrong, or I could be the adult and guide my daughter through her epic tantrum, back to a world where we are all smiling and giggling and I'm grinning at my babies thanking God for such perfect creatures.

I chose the later option but it was hard work and if it weren't for my husband I would probably still be curled up on the floor in tears.

My kids are adorable little people.

My son is 3 months old. He's rolled a couple of times, has just started to reach out for things and put them in his mouth and he will always return a smile if you smile at him. He sleeps fairly well at night, normally going down around 7pm (I say around because as hard as I try to get him to bed by 7pm I quite often fail..) and waking once during the night for a feed before starting the new day at 6.30am. I have tried many times to introduce a dreamfeed but at the beginning he wouldn't feed unless he were awake and now, he is happy to have a drink but it makes no difference to his sleep. Regardless of whether or not he has a dreamfeed he will always wake anywhere between 12am and 3am. I was even lucky enough for him to once sleep through till 4.20am!!

My daughter is 2 and a half. She was born on a hot summers morning after a very quick labour and had a full head of dark hair. She was sitting by 4 months, crawling a little later than others but walking before her first birthday. By 13 months she was telling me when she needed to use the toilet and by 16 months I felt comfortable enough that I could put her in undies and people wouldn't judge me for toilet training someone so young.

Just shy of her second birthday my daughter threw her first tantrum. At the time, I thought my world was falling apart. My perfect child that was easily swayed had all of a sudden decided she was her own little person who if she didn't get her way, would yell NOOOOOO at the top of her lungs until I would bargain with her and we were both happy. Tantrums at this age lasted no more than 5 minutes and now that I think back, could probably have been avoided had I not been so stubborn. Something which I have since discovered has been passed on to my daughter.

When you witness your own child throwing a "terrible twos" tantrum you have that ARHHH moment where it suddenly dawns on you, the real reason why it's called the terrible twos. Well let me tell you, the tantrums at 24 months, are nothing compared to the tantrums at 31 months. They're louder, last much longer and start for such stupid reasons.

The tantrums (yes, multiple) I endured today are the reason for this blog. While sitting through the third tantrum of the day, there was that moment where the room went silent and I smiled and saw the funny side of my daughters epic tantrum.

My husband and I had endured two tantrums already this morning. Before the third and final one, we thought our daughter was all screamed out and surely there was no way she would have enough energy to burst out again. But she did. In actual fact she had enough energy for a tantrum that lasted one hour.
It started with a bike ride....