Let the temper tantrums begin...

In the past few days, Trey has seemed less and less like our sweet little baby boy, and more and more like a grown up big boy! I'm not really sure what it is, but in recent days, he has looked older and more grown up. Maybe it is the transition to a new class, or maybe it is his 2nd birthday lingering around the corner. We aren't really sure, but lately it is really hitting us that Trey is no longer a baby.

With this foray into toddlerdom comes a whole new set of challenges. There is the "I-can-do-it-myself" attitude, even when he can't quite do it himself, there is his ability to say "no" and refuse to do things when he doesn't want to do them, and let's not forget the looming challenges of potty training. But the latest challenge that we have seen in our house is the dreaded temper tantrum.

For example, last week, Mommy and Trey were home at night, and Mommy gave Trey a lovely dinner of macaroni and cheese and green beans. Trey gobbled up the macaroni and asked for more. Mommy told him he could have more if he ate some green beans. Then, all hell broke loose.

Trey did NOT want to eat green beans. In fact, he did NOT want any more macaroni. Nope. All he wanted in the whole world was a "b-b-b-bar" (read: breakfast bar). Breakfast bars are really terrible food items (if you can really even call them food) that Trey does not get to eat regularly because of their ridiculously high sugar content, but that we will sometimes give him if we are running late for school or church, Trey seems hungry, and there are no other sensible options in sight. They are only for breakfast and other emergency situations; Trey is never allowed to eat one for dinner.

So, on this day, Trey pitched a big fit for his "b-b-b-bar," and pitched an even bigger fit when Mommy would not let him have one. After about 20 minutes of this screaming, I picked up the camera in order to document to Daddy the fun we had while he was not at home.



You might think I was a little heartless for putting Trey on camera while he was having this meltdown, but keep in mind this had been going on for a while, and I was trying to stay calm, as my mother taught me to do during tantrums like this, so I thought it would be just as well to hide behind a camera.

One of the funniest parts of all of this, if humor can be found in a toddler temper tantrum, was that Trey kept trying to physically move me over to the pantry to open it and retrieve a breakfast bar, even though he is perfectly capable of opening the pantry himself, but just hasn't figured out exactly how to do it. I mean, he obviously knows where the breakfast bars are kept; they are on the bottom shelf and easy for him to get to, and if he'd had enough will he could have figured out how to open the cabinet himself.

Trey never did get his breakfast bar. But he didn't eat the green beans or anything else that night. Instead, he had a cup of milk, laid on my shoulder and cried it out, and then we got ready for bed.

It certainly would have been easier for me to give into Trey's fit, but then again, I'm trying to maintain some sense of authority in my own home. So what do you think, dear readers? Was I being too mean a mommy by not giving Trey his beloved breakfast bar? Or was I doing the right thing by holding my ground? Cast your vote in the poll to the right.