Tantrums and Resilient Baby Heads

Now that Kirby is able to know what he wants and appreciate when he gets what he wants, he is also able to know when he doesn’t get what he wants and show his disapproval. Unfortunately he still can’t talk and say, “Listen, Mom: I know you have to bake muffins for the Women’s Group, and I know I’m cutting your time short here by forcing you to hold me up, but I really want to continue playing with this Mickey Mouse toaster, so you’re just going to have to keep me entertained with this until I get bored in an hour or two,” so he does the most natural thing and throws a tantrum. Now in case you don’t have kids and it’s been awhile since you’ve had a fit, let me remind you what a tantrum involves. There are two kinds, first of all: The Make-as-Much-Noise-as-I-Possibly-Can-so-You-Can-Hurt-Like-I-Do-Now Tantrum and The Why-Are-You-the-Worst-Parents-in-the-World-and-Delight-in-my-Suffering? Tantrum. The noisy one involves more of a screaming cry and is performed standing up so that my son can stamp his feet and still reach breakable things to throw on the ground. The suffering one involves a wailing cry and is accomplished by my darling baby throwing his body backwards quickly, resulting in actual pain which causes an even better reason to be crying. Now that he’s older both tantrums may involve some sort of purposeful self-assault that Justin likes to refer to as the “Stupid, Stupid” Chris Farley impression. This usually takes the form of the Why are you hitting yourself in the Head? classic grade school bully game of yesteryear, only with Kirby controlling his own hand. But sometimes he likes to bang his head against either the ground, the back of the high chair, or your face, depending on his current situation. I will concede that it must be very frustrating to not be able to communicate when you know precisely what you want, but I think the baby has yet to grasp the concept that we get to decide what he gets to do/eat/throw and not him. Sigh. The greatest part is that when he’s in such desperate anguish, I am the one he comes to for comfort, even if I was the perpetrator. I love it. But I sure do thank God for resilient baby heads.