My nearly threenager finally flipped her lid

I don’t know what Aerin was mad about yesterday, I was upstairs trying to get Kim’s phone to work, but it ended up when I came down a 2yo screaming at the top of her lungs that she didn’t want to stop an activity and she got told to go to the calm down chair.

Usually she goes, calms down, and can get right back up when she calms down. It’s not used as a punishment, just a “go sit there and calm down and then come back” but last night it ended up being one simply by the fact that she refused, and when placed there to calm down decided to scream and fight and kick and such.

This was interesting as I’ve never run across another child in full meltdown mode. Maggie was the first, with a scream that was so loud your ears rang and people next door assumed someone had died. Aerin’s rants got loud, but it was like dealing with a very low level Maggie.

I realized that it was pretty much possible to not feel like I was losing it simply because the volume level was normal human. With Maggie the shrieking did something to you. I mean I’m certain there’s a volume at which people go from caring to wanting to build a soundproof room in the basement to stick a kid in meltdown.

I’ve dealt with other people’s kids in meltdown mode before, as I’m not the parent in those situations it’s always been pretty easy, and that’s what it felt like in this situation. This was easy. We started on difficulty level 11 with Maggie and managed to set it at about a 2 for Aerin. Even her tantrum state was like a scaled back instructional video on how to gently handle a two year old having a meltdown.

So, yeah, earplugs, get them. You’ll do yourself a favor if you’ve got an opera singer in the house. Reduced volume of baby seriously unfrazzled me.