terrible

Eddie is officially in his "terrible twos" stage. His Dad said this a few weeks ago. If "terrible twos" is characterized by extreme emotional outbursts of expression that usually culminate in throwing oneself on the floor, throwing of objects in a fit of rage and general menace-like behavior, than yes, Eddie is in his terrible twos. The collapsing to the floor occurs really anytime he wants something and is refused, or if you go to try to pick him up to remove him from a situation and he wants to remain in his troubling endeavor, then he will become boneless and collapse in a whiny fit. Of course he loves to throw balls, but he also will throw something when upset, as in on the changing table, which he hates more than anything. As he tries to scoot off of it backwards, he will throw lotions and such at our heads. And of course he loves to throw his food now. I didn't realize how messy and annoying this is until today, since I am without a dog. Perhaps the worst of it all is that he has no willingness to please and often does the exact opposite of what we say. He seems to get a real charge out of this. I am constantly telling him NOT to eat certain things and yet he consistently repeats his consumption of nasty inedibles, such as crayons, chalk, hair gel, toothpaste, dirt, citrus rinds, flowers, lotion, soap. You name it and he has tasted it...and oddly seems to like it. When I get serious and tell him to look me in the face or get upset and raise my voice in a stern "NO," he laughs. He will often run away from us, giggling, of course. I am thinking that maybe I have too high of expectations of him. I think that he is capable of doing tasks like coloring a picture or helping me prepare biscuits, and yet activities end in abrupt frustration because he consumes the crayons or stuffs flour into his mouth vigorously. Maybe I need to leave him to play with balls and trucks and run around, and not try to do more civilized things like arts & crafts projects. And maybe my eagerness to DO things overtakes the realistic notion that he is a toddler. Take today, for example. I thought going to the garden center to buy seeds and some tools would be fun. We would look at flowers and a koi pond and cool objects. And he did enjoy it, and luckily we got there before it was too crowded so he could run around a bit. But the problem arose when we went to pay for our items and he spotted some cool glass balls, sort of garden art pieces, and colorful glass bud vases. I set him down because he was squirming too much and whining and I had to get my card out to pay, and of course the instant I set him down he reached for the bud vases and as I tried to intercept, I was too late and he knocked over one, which in turn knocked over who knows how many in a domino effect resulting in colorful shattered glass everywhere. As I tried to mitigate the mess, he found comfort in the arms of another woman - a long grey-haired woman scooped him up and told him it was alright. She just seemed to ooze the essence of calm and soothing...whereas I was the stern-faced, disappointed and embarrassed parent trying to scold and teach him a lesson. The workers magically cleaned it all in a matter of seconds and I don't think they charged me for the vases, as we bolted out of there and drove home in silence.