Learning How to Complain

Number Two has been working on his complaining skills.  You’d think this is instinctual but toddlers are able to move up to the major leagues when it comes to protest.  At over 1 ½ now, Number Two is finally realizing that while quiet whining and patience may eventually get you what you want, max-volume shrieking and drama will get a more immediate reaction, good or not.  Just as Child Harbat learned how to bring Kabuki-like drama to every small setback, now Number Two sounds the klaxon for maximum alert for even the smallest things.  Drop a book?  Shriek.  You take away a meat cleaver he is waving around?  Shriek.  He finds a closed door where once it was open?  Turn and walk the other way for five wobbly steps, pause, then drop to the ground, sob, and beat your head with your fists.  Utter misery.  Often this culminates starting at four in the afternoon and accelerates through dinnertime.

So, readers, do you go to pieces if not allowed to feed yourself yogurt?  Do you turn into a teary blubbering mess if you are prevented from eating stale breadcrusts off the floor?  Do you scream and wail if someone suggests, beg pardon sir, that you shouldn’t paw through the kitchen garbage like a raccoon?  Then you might be a contestant for THE game of the year, Everything Tears!

Number Two protest

 

Writer, architect, father, husband.

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6 comments on “Learning How to Complain
  1. psoutowood says:

    First! I don’t know when those bangs are going to grow back but I’m really regretting attempting to cut them at all. Better to be Emo-long than lobotomy-short.

  2. Babs says:

    I think being caught inside the chair with the monk haircut is what might be causing the trauma…or maybe it’s just the barometric pressure. My guess is that it’s all normal.

    • psoutowood says:

      The funny thing is, he LOVES climbing inside this thing and going for rides around the house. I think this picture was right after their was an attempt made to remove the iPod. And since he wasn’t near a mirror it probably wasn’t his reaction to the haircut, though he might cry when he’s older and sees these pictures.

  3. amberskyef says:

    Oh kids. My nephew had meltodowns about everything. My ex sis-in-law wouldn’t give him Dr. Pepper (he was 2 at the time! Don’t give babies soda)! He screamed for an hour before she finally took him out of the mall and even then screamed thereafter.

    • psoutowood says:

      See, the problem was that he really wanted Dr. Pibb. If only he had the right soda he would’ve been happy. Aaaaaaand…that’s why we have children that look like sumo wrestlers. Well, kids learn how to get a reaction very early on, it’s their survival mechanism, it just seems like a meltdown but really it’s a breakdown in communication PLUS a meltdown.