please reassure me that this is just a toddler phase

[drivingmisscrazy]

I only have the one DD, so please forgive me if I am being ridiculous...she's 22 months, and generally lovely, bright, happy - she's a bit shy and has had a long stretch of separation anxiety. She has a lot of vocab, but is only just starting to put words together. Anyway, the last few days, she has just been quite difficult - everything is wrong, she cries and creates at everything, wants things and then goes ballistic when they are not immediately produced etc etc. I took her to the swings today and she had a huge tantrum because the crows (which she correctly identified) flew away (this was actually funny).

It's very hard work...I assume this is just normal boundary testing/ frustration at not getting her own way/ annoyance at not being able to communicate as well as she wants etc? Put like that I almost feel sorry for her - but less so when she wants to go 'outside' in the cold for the eleventy-fifth time that day. Aaargh!

All sounds perfectly normal to me. DD is 2.3 and is just the same. She has days where she is a joy, and other days (especially when she is tired or has a cold or just not quite herself) when everything is wrong. Yesterday she didn't nap at nursery and was so tired on the way home-

'I want to be carried' (I pick her up)
'Put me DOWN! DOWN! DOWN! Want to walk!' (I put her down)
'Carry me!'
'Turn the dark off- don't like the dark' (Major tantrum when I explain I can't switch it off)

And so on...

I symphatise... I am worn down by the constant tantrums. From morning til evening there's no end to the screetching, throwing things, wailing and throwing herself on the ground... Exausting. This evening I finally got her into bed and just slumped down next to her cot completely drained of all the fights of the day. Feel like a complete failure as a mom. Very hard ignoring like we're told too.

In between there is glimpses of my delightful girl though which makes it more bearable and I can only hope and pray that it better will pass.

It's a phase, and I'm going through the phase with DD2. DD1, who had always seemed more hard work, seems like an angel now in comparison. She's also a lot more understanding of DD2 than I am - I guess she remembers what it's like.

I do use the opportunity though with DD2 in the lucid moments during the day, to refer back to previous incidents and tell her they upset me. She screamed all the way home yesterday at the back of the car and when things had calmed down at the end of the day and I mentioned the incident, she apologised (spontaneously - I never "make" my children say sorry). She also told me why she had screamed, and as always, there was a perfectly logical reason. Anyway, she didn't do it again today, maybe because we'd had a little chat.

It always amazes me when we talk about an incident when things have calmed down how the kids have perfectly good and reasonable explanations for their behaviours.