Lovely Stage

I'm not sure what happened. At some point over the last couple of weeks, my sweet little angel Dane has been replaced by a screaming, crying, tantrum throwing, snot bubble blowing, bad-attitude-having toddler. He glares at me and others, hits people and things, throws things and throws himself on the ground. And yes, I have that child. The one who screams. The kind of child that, before I had children, I would roll my eyes at, plug my ears and ask "why is that baby's mom letting it scream like that! Ugh. How annoying." He screams for fun, sometimes looking very proud of himself. I've tried everything - ignoring, sternly telling him "NO Dane! We don't scream" giving him a little pops on the mouth. I've certainly not resorted to locking myself in my closet for a few moments of sweet muffled silence, screaming that I might go crazy if he doesn't stop while on the verge of tears, or indulging in a glass of wine or two. No, definitely not.

I don't know what happened. Looking back I wondered if maybe this change in behavior was directly correlated to the paci weaning. After pondering it for a couple of days I decided that giving my sweet baby back his paci (or is it the paci giving me back my sweet baby - anyway) I decided it was worth a try. So out came the paci right back into Dane's waiting mouth. He quickly picked back up his finely tuned skills of fully operating with paci intact.

I dropped him off at his babysitters this morning - paci in mouth. Chas looked horrified when she opened the door, pointed at Dane asking "what's that!?" Before I could answer she informed me that Dane didn't take a paci at her house and hadn't cried for one in, well, she couldn't even remember when. (she also claims he doesn't scream at her house) hmmm, very interesting. I was *sure* he would be crying for his paci today, probably letting out continuous ear piercing screams until she texted me and admitted she wished she would have kept it. She would see. And nope, she didn't want to keep it on the counter "just in case."

I picked up the little darlings and Dane came running "mommy! mommy!" And the minute he rounded the corner toddling over as fast as he could with outstretched arms he began chanting PACI PACI PACI PACI over and over. Wide-eyed I looked at Chas and said "See! Do you hear what he's saying!" "Yes" she said "he didn't ask for it one time today! Did he, Will?" Will then confirmed with a shake of the head that nope, he hadn't asked for it. I think my little angel might be playing his Momma.

Oh, and all this didn't change his screaming or his tantrums. I guess the moral of the story is that we've entered the terrible twos at 18 months. Woo Hoo.