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The tantrum that lasted an hour or so

Maggie in not quite appropriate seatingI got in a little late today, I could hear the yelling through closed doors and a brick house.

ITMama was in the kitchen and Maggie was screaming from the baby room. I popped in to check with mama before checking on the baby as it was frustration crying and not pain and we try and not step on feet when it comes to dealing with a meltdown baby.

She’d gotten massively upset that she wasn’t able to master locking and unlocking a baby restraint device in the swing out back. So angry that even her swinging was not soothing the savage beast. This lead to a meltdown.

The tantrum had been going on for a while when I got there. She’d been crying for too long when I went in and attempted to calm her. It appeared the tantrum was feeding on itself, I don’t think Maggie knew why she was mad any more. She seemed distrusting of me and said no to anything I offered as potential solace.

I picked her up and put her into baby baby position, this was unwelcome and fought so avidly I tried to give her a hug and had feet and hands on my chest preventing any sort of hugging.

I put her down and she resumed wailing. There wasn’t much I could do. I eventually gave her a pacifier and told her we had appropriate seating in the living room where she could sit and eat some fruit and mac and cheese that mom was offering. Appropriate sized seating seems to be a big thing for her still.

It was an interesting day that had started fairly early and ended kind of late. I think she’s getting frustrated with not being able to control or understand everything in the environment and I can understand her frustration.

She gets so much of the world and is ticked off that she can’t manipulate everything.

Eating and sitting seemed to calm her. Sitting in something designed for her and manipulatable by her, and feeding herself were the things that got her back to reality.

I think she’s got engineer and tinkerer in her. More than I expected. I might have to let up a bit on the plans to push her toward being a Google Engineer and break out ponies or something to distract in these times.

After she was done, sense seemed to return, baby rage gone, she went next door and played with doggies and then when she came home seemed a bit sad that the day was ending half an hour past her bedtime.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.