Express yourself

D is Exploring the full range of her voice. She was after all once told by a noted critic (a rather irate fellow M&S cafe customer) that she had the potential to go all the way in the opera.

It all started a few days ago, her siblings had helped themselves to ice creams and rather than let her do the same I notified her that I would be holding the ice cream for her. Queue her first really full on tantrum; wailing like a banshee while seeming to have an epileptic fit on the floor, she flayed about so much that after about 15min Ali was holding the back of her head so she wouldn't brain herself on the tiled floor. After about 25min she finally calmed down.

The first toddler tantrum is one of those things you don't really forget, I think I actually have video footage of G's first big effort in Sunbury which was similarly spectacular. From memory it also ushered in what Ali and I used to refer to as the terrible one's and three's since both F&G missed the notorious terrible two's.

Obviously once you've done one big tantrum and seen the chaos and attention it attracts it would be a shame not to do it again. This morning after waking up at a now thankfully rare 6am, she quickly decided we weren't doing anything exciting and instead of hanging around she just walked out of the door to see if anything more interesting was going on elsewhere. She soon came back with Goliath in tow and a book in hand demanding that it be read to her. Wanting to encourage this early interest in literature I started to read what remained of the book, this resulted in a huge protest, Ali then took over which after a brief pause only seemed to increase the noise. At this point having had enough of the shrieking, I left the room to make a cup tea unfortunately D decided to follow while in full hysterics.

During her first tantrum I'd managed not to rise to it and had it together enough to tell Ali not to laugh at the theatric thrashings since a tantrum is a serious matter from a kids perspective. It does not need pandering to, but is totally understandable. Since I still have them as an adult why can't a one year old lose the plot occasionally. This morning I was not so zen, after 10min of tantrum in the kitchen I blew her a raspberry in exasperation and Ali had to give me a ticking off. Not being in any state to deal with any more I focused on making tea and left Ali to deal with it.

While difficult on the ears, it's yet another developmental step. She is more independent, more certain of herself and of her desires as an individual. Part of me is proud and happy for her and the other is looking forward nervously to her continuing to express herself.

One certain outcome is that I can add a couple of reasons to one of my favourite blog posts (http://jasongood.net/365/2012/12/46-reasons-why-my-three-year-old-might-be-freaking-out/):

She's not allowed to use her ice cream to paint the house, her face or her body.

I'm not reading the missing page in her book that she ripped out yesterday