Toddler Tales 2

These days, it seems, most members of the family have been seeking their own little spaces of alone time. The patches of inner peace that we find during various times of the day are our way of dealing with the chaos surrounding us, particularly the chaos emanating from a two-and-a -half foot tall shrill and belligerent dynamo, whose painfully imposing presence, it seems, has started to take a toll on all of us.


They say the Terrible Two's are one of nature's ways of ensuring that our sins against our own parents are equitably balanced by the magnitude of tantrums thrown by our children. If this is to be believed, than it may very well be the combined weight of our filial iniquities that have amassed in a roiling dark cloud over our Eli's head, breaking into storm-tacular extravaganzas at an average, it seems, of 30 minutes or so.


As Woog is won't to say, in the lyrics of his favorite Queen, “...thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightning....”


“.....Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh......!” Eli seques, calling to mind the unending siren-screams of the alien-infected in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It seems we are living in an audio version of the movie, with our baby's glass breakers calling forth the same kind of goosebumps.


*shudder*


We suppose he would be that kind of a baby, being not only the coddled youngest, but also unable to harness the wealth of words that had come so easily to Woog so many years before. Whereas Woog was lisping complete paragraphs at age two, Eli can claim only one complete sentence to his name: “Oh no!”


This frustrated inability to express himself effectively may have great bearing on this constant rearing of his temper. That and his persistent constipation that has resisted formula changes, a high-fiber diet, and sippy cups full of prune juice, ending with a final violent struggle to insert a suppository.


It would seem his frequent tantrums are his way of expelling the emotional waste his nether orifice cannot. In any case, it has put quite a damper on all our efforts at toilet training:


Eli (squats in a corner): Mush!


Mom (hurries toward him with the potty): Sit here, 'Pet, not on your diapy.


Eli (scuttles further into the corner): Oh no!



And so, between bouts of soothing him, distracting him, extending our stretched-to-the-limits tolerance, and flat-out ignoring him, we are forced to escape into realms of our own making: Atch relaxing outside with the neighborhood toughies taffys, smoking poison sticks and downing a shot or two; Woog assembling complicated Megabloc structures with his eyes glued on Pokemon at full volume, and Eli's mom in front of her blog, waiting for the moment when tiny rays of sunshine decide to shine through her younger son’s rain.