Tantrum Times

Arghh...the first 12 hours of Patrick gone aren't going so hot.

This isn't the first time he has been gone for several days at a time-there was several stretches in the fall that he was gone and I seem to remember it going smoothly...not sure why this time is more difficulty.

Probably because Nora has become even MORE of a daddy's girl in the 4 month period since then.

Patrick left this morning before she woke up and she immediately was crying out, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." over and over and over again. (side note: when I was gone to Hawaii, Patrick said she cried out for me 1 time in the 5 days I was gone...)
We waved at an airplane going by (I pretended it was Patrick's plane-even though it was headed towards town, not away from it. It dawned on me that she doesn't yet know the difference! Phew!). That helped a tiny bit, but not really. She sat on the couch in the kitchen, fixated on the sky above for about 1/2 an hour and I had to peel her away to go to daycare.

When I picked her up after work, she broke out into more "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and crying chorus. Poor girl! She really misses him. I try to explain that we'll get on an airplane in a few days to see him, but does she really get it? Not sure.

This evening was temper tantrum after temper tantrum. I heard an announcement about a parenting class being taught on the radio earlier today. So I put a call into the radio station to get more specifics on that. Not sure if it is for parents of toddlers or older kids. I'm up for all the advice and help I can get. My friends are helpful and supportive, but the intensity of Noras tantrums blows many 2 year olds tantrums out of the water. Even the infant learning experts said that Nora's tantrums are of an unusual duration and intenstiy for a two year old. Extreme stubborness in action, I must say.

Some parents appear to have all the answers for their kids-not Patrick and I. He and I talk about that regularly. How this is such a learning process for him and I. He continues to be amazingly patient-more so than I. Its not that I lose it, but I have less tolerance for Nora standing there crying (rather-screaming on the top of her lungs) for 15-20 minutes at a time. Tonight when I was trying to eat my dinner and she was standing there screeching because I wouldn't give her the WHOLE bag of tortillas, I had it. I put her in the time out room for several minutes so I could eat my dinner in peace. There is nothing more annoying to me than trying to savor food in the company of a screaming toddler. Its my pet peeve. It is rude and irks me.

I know she is only 2. I know she isn't a "mini-adult". She is a two year old-irrational, unpredictable, tempermental, etc..
Sigh. I love her so much and want to help her find her groove easier. Hopefully in 2 months this phase will have passed and her tantrums will be less extreme and I will look back and be thrilled to be on to a different challege. Thats how parenting goes...goes from teething, not sleeping, to tantrums, then talking back probably....I can't even imagine what other adventures lay ahead.

Tonight Nora and I shared a wonderful 20 minutes of reading books together before bed. She crawled up in my lap repeatedly with various books, tucked her feet under my legs to warm them up, nestled her head into my body and listened intently to the book, pointing out her favorite parts, squealing occasionally. Those moments rock. Those are the parenting HIGH moments. Just happens that today the parenting Lows outweighed the duration of the highs. But perhaps I can relish in the sweetness of those high moments and let the low ones take a back seat.
As I always say, never a dull moment around here.

Zoya