Melt Downs Here, There and Everywhere

Life with two toddlers can be interesting. You are always walking on eggshells, wondering what might set them off on a crying jag. They get upset at the smallest of things, but that small thing could result in you bolting from a restaurant and taking refuge in a car from the stares of a thousand fellow diners who wonder why you can’t control your child.

How do they make tears appear on demand? It is an unexplained phenomenon. How do they get so fired up about the smallest thing? They cry better than the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz. And how can they completely go insane over something as small as a sticker not sticking to their shirt?

I have two children who are as different as night and day. Tyson is mellow, laid back and a “good listener” when it comes to obeying mom and dad. Sydney is….well, she is going to read this some day, so let’s just say she is the, er, opposite.  The battles we are going to have during her teen-age years are going to be epic. If I don’t have a heart attack before then, it will most certainly come during one of her ginormous fits over not being allowed to stay out all night with her bad-boy boyfriend.

But they are two-of-a-kind when it comes to melt downs. On any given day, we have a couple of crying fits out of both of the children. Over the damndest things.

Here are the odd things that can make either one of my kids go into a crying fit:

Sydney

The radio not playing her favorite song.

A song on the radio sung by a man instead of a woman.

Me singing a song. (This brings others to tears, too….I just beat you to the joke you were thinking. Ha Ha.)

One of the dogs touching her as it walks by.

Any clothing item she is wearing, any part of her body, or any toy she is playing with getting even a single drop of water on it.

A sticker not sticking to her clothing. (She has even awakened in the middle of the night and cried long and hard to the point where I have to go in and settle her, all because the sticker she put on her pajamas before she went to bed is not there at 3 a.m.)

Going to bed.

Waking up.

Not getting to wear her Halloween costume anytime, anywhere, any day.

Her shoes being too tight. (Not too small, mind you. The same shoes she wore the day before and will wear the next day. Just on THIS day, they are too tight.)

The sun going down.

The moon not being visible at night.

Dinner time.

Her dad calling her Sydney Grace Gregg. (It is JUST SYDNEY dad!)

Tyson 

The dogs staring him down when he has a snack in his hand. (Not actually stealing the snack, but just looking like they might steal it.)

Anything other than Team Umizoomi being on the television.

The robot in Team Umizoomi swimming in an Olympic-style race. (No idea. But he can’t seem to watch this episode without cowering and crying.)

Not being allowed to push a desk chair around the house. (It might be a good workout for him, but we don’t need any scrapes on the wooden floor.)

Not getting to go to bed. (Unlike his sister, he likes to sleep. He is ready to go down about 8 p.m. and gets cranky if you delay.)

Sitting him in his bathtub seat rather than just letting him rough it alone in the tub.

Tearing his food into bite-sized pieces rather than letting him chow down on something that would necessitate me performing the Heimlich maneuver.

Not letting him eat the top of a crayon. (I’ve caught him with blue or green tongues more than I care to admit.)

That’s just a start. If I were to track the things that upset them to the point of anger/tears for the next six months, this list would be 1) as long as Kirstie Alley’s grocery list and 2) as crazy as a lunch date with Amanda Byne and Lindsay Lohan.

Yes, Syndey’s list is much longer. That is either because she is a girl, because she is older or because she is a drama queen. You make the call.

I can laugh now. But when we are going through these little mini-fits, laughter is the furthest thing from my mind.