Tempers Flaring

I truly am a clueless parent. I seriously thought I had seen Jack at his grumpiest and was ready for anything. I was also under the assumption that I would continue to be able to get at least a few things done during the day. Boy, was I wrong.

Since his last couple of teeth came in (Chomper and Chomper Jr.), Jack has been teething off and on with little progress. Bitey and Bitey Jr. have just been stubborn. But last week they renewed their attack on our poor little boy's gums, inviting their friends along for a full assault. (At least it feels like their are four teeth coming in on the bottom. It is hard to tell without getting bit.) This made for one grumpy boy that did not want to nap last week.

Anyway, this led to his first bonafide temper tantrum. (I maintain he gets his temper from his mommy...) He wanted his formula and was getting very impatient and angry with me, but no tantrum, yet. I picked him up and we went over to the chair so he could have his drink. (Lately, he has been getting more independent and drinks it on his own on the floor, but since he was not feeling well I thought he would want to snuggle.) Jack took the bottle from me, put it in his mouth and became instantly incensed. He took the bottle out of his mouth and started hitting it. Then he threw it on the floor. But then he cried and reached for it like he wanted it. So, stupid Daddy picked it up and tried to give it to him. This made him even madder and he tossed it across the room. Then he wanted down. He crawled over to the bottle, picked it up, and started banging it on the floor. He then threw it again, chased after it and started batting it around the floor, randomly picking it up and hitting the top. (He was crying/yelling this entire time.) I was at a loss of why he was so mad and also stunned at his behavior. I just sat their with my mouth hanging open watching him give his bottle Hell for quite awhile. But I finally put two and two together to realize that something was wrong with the bottle top. Apparently, Jack wanted a different style of bottle than the one I made.

While he still gets a traditional bottle about once a day, he has mostly been drinking out of sippy cups. One bottle has a kind of hard sippy cup top that replaces a nipple. While not his favorite, he will still normally take it--not that day. I do not want to get in the habit of giving in to tantrums, but I was curious this time just to see if I was right about why he was mad. So I switched the top to a regular nipple and tried giving it to him again. Sure enough, he took it right away and sighed with relief, giving me a look that clearly read, "Took you long enough!"

In the next post, I will talk about the fun stuff from last week.