I Don't Care

This morning was ridiculous. Caleb has completely lost his mind and he's pushing me to lose mine. He was perfectly fine when Rudy got him dressed and he was perfectly fine sitting on the bed watching Higglytown Heroes. At 6:55, I told him it was time to turn off the TV. That's when the fits started. Heroes was over and there was some sort of filler going on until the next show started. He wasn't involved in a TV show, so that wasn't the problem. The problem is that he throws a fit anytime I ask him to do something or tell him it's time to do something. He finally managed to turn off the TV (Heaven forbid I should do it!), get off the bed and turn off the light (again...if I do it, the fits start all over again and I'm not about to worry about who turns the light off...I'm better at choosing battles than that!). We made it to the kitchen to put his cup in the sink - another thing that he has to do himself. Finally - we made it to the bathroom. I decided to try letting him think he was making the decisions, so I asked if he wanted to go to the potty first or brush his teeth first. Of course, he chose to potty first and as soon as I got started helping him with his pants, he changed his mind. Due to the fact that his pants were already around his ankles, I insisted that we continue with the original plan. This caused another fit. I finally got him dressed again and we struggled through toothbrushing. Then he wanted to take a car with him to school. I'm fine with that, but it took him forever to choose one. By the time we finally got out the door, it was 7:18. I was flabbergasted by all of Caleb's screaming and crying and flopping to the floor. He probably said the word "NO" 50 times in that 23 minute span. Once we got in the car, he decided he didn't want the toy that he had, so he threw it on the floor. Two minutes later, he was screaming for the toy. I had reached my limit. I'm embarrassed to admit that I yelled at him. I really yelled. Not only did I yell, but I yelled, "I don't care!" Of course, my yelling didn't help anything, it really only made it worse. When we were about halfway to Caleb's school, he got very quiet, then started talking to me like nothing had happened. When we pulled into the parking lot, he asked me if Mrs. Natalie was there and I told him yes. At 7:32, when I was already late for work, we walked in the door at Caleb's school. He saw Mrs. Natalie and took off running for her. Of course, after the morning we had, it was hard to convince myself that he wasn't choosing her over me. At her encouragement, he came back over and gave me a hug and kiss and told me goodbye. I told him I loved him and walked out the door with a heavy heart. These tantrums have been escalating, getting more and more frequent and seem to be the worst with me, though Rudy has had to deal with some tough ones too. I cried all the way from Caleb's school to mine, remorseful for yelling at him and telling him that I didn't care. Those words are very hurtful to me for some reason. It's important to me that Caleb knows that I care about what he cares about. Maybe that's ridiculous, but it's true. When I got to work...very late...I e-mailed Rudy and shared an overview of our morning. We wrote back and forth and he gave me some very kind words of encouragement, for which I was extremely grateful. We both agreed that we're looking forward to the day that this phase ends and our even-tempered Caleb is back. I stopped on my way home today and bought a book about discipline that comes highly recommended. I'll be reading it this weekend and trying to implement some new strategies ASAP. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I'm burning out pretty quickly and I don't like it. I'm open to any suggestions anyone might have on dealing with toddler tantrums!

Oh...and to top it all off, Caleb had two accidents at school today. He went through both of his pairs of extra pants.

I love this boy with every ounce of my being. I'm equally amazed at how wonderful and how hard parenting a 2-year-old has turned out to be.