This afternoon, we had a normal, happy evening. We went for a walk (And got drenched in the rain), ate floppies for dinner and then rough-housed. Joel and Ben played the guitar for a while and we just hung out. At bedtime, Ben went upstairs just fine...but for some reason, he lost it and started a melt down. He is so big and strong and it's almost impossible for me to wrestle him enough to get his diapers on. We wrestled for at least five minutes and I got his diaper on...meanwhile he's thrashing and screaming and hitting and kicking...My frustration was quickly rising, but I kept it under control. Joel sat on him to brush his teeth, meanwhile he's still screaming and thrashing. Obviously, story time was out the window. So, I picked him up and put him in bed (trying to keep my frustration under control to avoid throwing him in bed...). I told him if he got out of bed, we'd shut his door. Of course, at this point in the meltdown, allllll logic is lost so he thrashed himself out of bed and began throwing himself against his door. As he's screaming, and wailing, and thrashing his body all around the room, we could hear him throwing his stuff all around his room and banging things against the door, wall, etc. I tried to go in his room a few times to try to calm him down and negotiate with him (HA!). All I got was a swift kick in the eye and an angry whack to my head. It took allllll my control to keep it together right here. Somehow, he calmed down after about 30 minutes...and as quick as the tantrum started, he was as sweet as pie, chatting in bed with Joel. They were talking about the tantrum and how it wasn't nice to kick and hit mommy...Ben crawled out of bed and very sweetly said sorry to me. Although, he never opened his mouth as he said the words, so all I heard over and over was an angelic voice saying "mmmm mmm-mmm" (Ben Sowwy) and then I got the sweetest little hug. Now he's upstairs banging his head to sleep as if nothing happened.
One of the hardest parts of these tantrums is keeping my frustration under control around Joel. I can usually keep my frustration under control around Ben, but if Joel's around, it provides an outlet for my frustration. Sooo, it's just better if we don't say a woooord to each other for 20 minutes or so after these huge meltdowns. Ben threw another tantrum like this the other night when it was just me at home. It's crazy how quickly things can change with his mood!!!!! There was nothing in our evening that gave the sliiiightest inclination that he was going to have a monster meltdown tonight. Good times!! I sure love him, though!! His sweetness makes up for these crazy tantrums a billion times over!
