Tantrums

First, I just want to post that Elie didn't take a nap today so I remember when it happened. Crazy! He slept a full 12 hours and went to sleep 12 hours after waking. He wasn't overly exhausted at the end, though, but fell asleep in the carrier as I was making a late snack for Yoav.

Yoav-wise, there's been a few things I want to write. He's back to having regular tantrums after a brief hiatus. Today I think he had three tantrums, one of which lasted an hour and a half! A few quick things and then I'll write about tonight's so I can remember details for later.

Yesterday he was playing with blocks and had constructed something. I was supposed to keep Elie from messing it up and I gathered up a few blocks in a basket to move away from Yoav for Elie to play with. I unknowingly included a few blocks from Yoav's structure as I was gathering. Oy vey! Yoav yelled at me to "put it back together". He wanted me to put it back exactly the way it was. Of course, I didn't know how it was. I told him I wanted to do it for him, but didn't know how it was. This continued for a bit and finally I suggested that he draw a picture of how it was so I could use the picture to help me. It was perfect! He liked the idea and went to get paper and pen and drew out rectangles for the blocks in the shape of the structure he was building. By the end of his drawing, he'd forgotten about the upset and just went back to playing. Then, today, when he asked me to play blocks with him, I said I'd rather wait until Aba was home because we'd had an issue yesterday with me accidentally messing up his structure when I was trying to keep Elie out of the way. He said, "But now we have a solution for that problem. I can just draw how it was." It was really cute how he said it. Glad we have a solution for that one. Now we just have a few more to work out. Would be great to have pre-planned solutions to get us through other tantrums. But I've tried talking to Yoav during calm periods and don't get anywhere. He thinks I should be able to do magic (like make water immediately disappear off clothing) if I love him as much as I claim to. :(

Oh, I just thought of something cute - he did another story today and at the end, he said, "Snip, snap, snout. Our tale is out of sight." LOL. (instead of "Our tale is told out.")

There were a few other cool comments he made today but I'm too tired to remember :( I have to start keeping a notebook.

One thing I remember he said yesterday was: "Sometimes I hurt Elie but I don't want to." then he corrected himself with, "Well, I want to first but then when he cries I wish I hadn't hurt him." That was cool to hear. At least it confirms what I knew was true, but it's nice that Yoav is able to see it so clearly himself.

Tonight's tantrum happened after Jeremy left (he's traveling for two days - not too much, but Yoav doesn't have a good sense of timing yet, so he just really knows that Jer is traveling). While Jer was still home, Yoav said, "I don't care if you go to work, or synagogue, or gym or those things. I just don't want you to ???" I can't remember the wording of the second sentence. He either said to go away for a long time or travel or something like that. Then Jer had a work problem and was stressed and Yoav said to me that he doesn't like when Jeremy talks "like that". So that's the background for the tantrum - Yoav didn't really get much of a chance to play w Jer before he left and Jer was stressed part of the time and Yoav had to say good-bye... So then a bit after Jer left, Elie accidentally broke a glass that Yoav had been drinking from. That led to Yoav yelling at me to put water in it for him to drink. I said I didn't want to do that b/c I wanted him to be safe and I was afraid he'd get cut on the glass. And on and on, him repeating his issue - he'd yell/cry, "Ima, will you do me a favor?" and say it over and over. I tried to just be present with him. At one point when he started telling me to fix the glass, I held him and said a few times, "I can't do that, but I can love you. I don't know how to fix the glass, but I do know how to love you, so I'll do that." I think that helped a lot. I'm going to try saying that for the next tantrum like this to see how it goes. I know I've said it before, but maybe not quite the same words. This seemed to help him. At least the tantrum came to an end shortly after, but it'd been going for a long time and he was tired and hungry, so who knows. Finally he said he wanted to do a "redo". It's an Aldort idea to kind of rewind a scene that you want to do differently. Can't really redo a broken glass though. I told him we could pretend it never happened. He said he wanted a redo "for real". Blah!!!! He's SO persistent!!! Anyway, I forget exactly what happened, but he relaxed and we did a redo and I said I'd get him a snack and drink and carried him to the kitchen for a snack. Elie fell asleep in the carrier and then I got to snuggle to sleep with Yoav.

I've been reading Conger's website about her son, who seemed to have similar, though more intense tantrums. Lots of great stuff there:
http://danielleconger.organiclearning.org/spirited.html

I just remembered one more thing through my haze. We were talking today about Scott Noelle's idea about not saying "What happened?" when one child starts crying. Today, something happened w Yoav and Elie that made Elie cry. I think I was washing dishes at the time and I just picked up Elie (who was smooshed between the Haba cart and the oven) and kissed him and hugged him. Yoav said, "Sorry Elie." Then, to me, he said, "I didn't mean to hurt him. I pushed the cart and it went too far and hit Elie." So I actually got the full story without even asking ;) Not that that's the point at all of Noelle's thoughts. But I like that Yoav told me what happened just because he wanted to. And he didn't try to cover up the fact that he *did* push the cart or say he didn't know what happened which I think are more likely responses from a child had I *asked* what had happened.