how to talk so children will listen and listen so children will talk - with a tantruming 2 yr old!

[WTSS]

anyone read this book. it has been recommended in this topic many times and i finally read it recently. its been really helpful, but today after a severe lack of sleep ( for both of us), long journeys on public transport, playdates and general kicking off, i found myself with a toddler screaming uncontrollably so i couldn't speak to her at all - well, she couldn't hear me to be precise.
she wanted to be carried and i couldn't carry her as was carrying 2 bags and a sleeping baby already.
could not for the life of me think of what to do to calm her or show i was listening when i could not physically do what she wanted or explain to her while she was screaming so loud.
what would you have done in the same situation?

I would have just waited until screams abated then given her a cuddle and tried to distract her all the way home with special emergency chocolate buttons. But am probably not good example

Hi WTSS, I've read the book and have found it helpful too. But I don't think you can use the approach described in the book during a tantrum. In fact there's not much you can do in the situation described. !

I'd probably sit and wait for child to calm down (if time and weather permitting) and while she's taking in breath (they have to occasionally!) mention something like 'when we get home we're going to do xxxx' in the hope that the message gets through.
So bribery basically!

"when we get home we're going to eat chocolate buttons!"

I would have put her in the pushchair with a dummy (if she has one) and a blanket and let her calm down. And if you are out with a toddler, a baby and two bags of shopping and no pushchair, you need to never try to do that again.

no blanket; no pushchair as we were visiting a friend 4 mins walk from our house; no shopping but a bag with baby stuff in it and her toy pushchair which she wanted to take and which we generally take to other little girl's houses to prevent turf war as to who gets to play with the only toy pushchair in the house.

it was bitterly cold outside. i could see it was going to take a while and had left 30 mins to make a 4 minute journey, but MIL phoned from our doorstep at 5.30, having said she would be there at 6.

in fact it feels better to write it down as i realise there was very little icould have done, but like the 'when we get home...' suggestion. will certainly try that one.
thanks.