I have a difficult-temperament child. He is finicky and grumpy so often during a day! He is also sweet and adorable quite often. He seems to ride the extremes. What is the next baby going to be like? I am on the edge of my seat...so curious.

Last night was TERRIBLE. It seems to go like this...one thing sets Owen off and gets him in a bit of a bad temper, and he responds by demanding something a certain way. If we don't appease him (whether giving in or more often distracting him somehow), a meltdown ensues that goes nowhere good, and harmony is never really recovered. We're really not sure what the right thing to do is in these situations. I mean, once he starts melting down, he becomes so completely emotionally chaotic that he starts to become a threat to himself...even Reuel--the firmer of the two of us--doesn't think it seems realistic to leave him alone when he gets so crazy out of control--but staying with him doesn't ever really calm him down either, spankings just escalate the matter, and we certainly don't walk away from such episodes feeling that we've 'put our foot down' and that Owen now 'knows who's boss.' It just seems like we've all fallen into an emotional quicksand trap that will suck us down faster the more we all flail around, but will suck us down just the same but a little slower if we sit still.

For my own memory, a quick summary. Owen is in a 'no-daddy' phase. This is disrepectful, willful behavior on his part; very intentional and ugly. But, we also think it has the feel of one of those things that when we pay it too much attention, it becomes even more enticing to him to rattle our cages by doing it more. So, since he actually has a very fine relationship with Reuel other than these verbal assaults, and occasional refusals to accept care from Reuel, we make it a policy to either ignore him and change the subject, or we calmly tell him that it's rude, it's disrespectful and we love Daddy and appreciate having him around. More often than not I can tell he's testing me to see how I'll respond when he says 'no daddy! no daddy!'

Well, last night after his bath he wasn't just testing; he meant it and he started pushing Reuel away. Reuel ignored him and started giving him zerberts, which can often get him laughing and change the mood. This time, not so much. Rather, he *really* didn't want Reuel in his space, and as Reuel pushed him, the madder and more violated he felt, and he got irritated. Reuel stopped, but by then Owen had decided to really misbehave, and started hitting Reuel and making various other bad choices, tantruming, throwing things, screaming about getting dressed, etc.. So what does one do? If I step in and take over, Owen gets what he wants and Mommy becomes the rescuer and Daddy is the bad guy. Even if Reuel shouldn't have pushed him (which was not much pushing, let me tell ya!), he was reacting very poorly. So with an exchange of looks we decided Owen would not get his way, Daddy would keep going with the bedtime routine, and if Owen chose to meltdown, it would be a learning opportunity about who's in charge. Hmm. 30 minutes later, he is still beside himself and hoarse from screaming. Reuel finally gets him a bit calm in the other room, but when he brings him back to the nursery to finish our routine and go to bed, every little thing completely sets him off again. Long saga short, lacking alternatives, we eventually put him in the crib and leave, knowing there is a high likelihood of him launching himself out of the crib, but realizing we have to take the chance. He tantrumed for another good long while and eventually crashed to sleep. This may still sound pretty normal to the seasoned parents. This is the part that amazes me...45 minutes later, he wakes up, remembers the mood he had upon falling asleep and decides to resume the tantrum for 20 mins or so. Another couple hours later, another 20 minutes of tantrum, not as intense, just whining and crying. I watched him very carefully on the monitor to see if something was wrong...nope, very clearly resuming what he left off when he got too tired to continue. After midnight, he slept through til morning just fine. Do normal children resume tantrums throughout the night? This is not the first occurrence.

This kind of thing could/would happen EVERY DAY if I were not constantly creatively bypassing the opportunities for deep meltdowns. So, I constantly feel like I'm giving him too much control and exacerbating his demandingness. But, because his tantrums are so extreme and so easily triggered, it is really darn difficult to know whether it is doing any good to go through them. Like I said, I really don't know that he 'learned' anything from last night...I don't think I did, and here I am with the capability of overanalyzing it. Should we be allowing more of them so that we are standing our ground more often? Will that make him more compliant? Or are we smart parents to find a road to peace by finding ways around them more often than not? Honestly, he seems most flexible about following our rules when he also senses that we will give him his wishes too. This conversation in my head every day is maddening. I just know I CANNOT do those kind of tantrums every day. If I had a clear manual for what to do when they happen, I could do it. But they are so confusing! If I lock him in his room, he will definitely either hurt himself, or start destroying the things in his room. Then, am I supposed to ignore that behavior, or hasn't the ante just been raised? Spanking during a tantrum just gets him more disorganized and unable to calm. Yikes. I can handle the manipulative tantrums just fine...the ones that he could shut off in an instant. Easy! It's these scary whole-hog ones.

I hope I just sound like an ignorant and overly worried first-time parent. Because the other alternative in my head is that I have a really abnormal, excessively difficult child who is going to have long-term problems if we don't find more effective ways of handling his behavior. Parenting is just so stressful sometimes because you love the little person so very, very much you want to make sure you're doing the very best job for them that you can. Sigh.