"I'm in tantrum position. T-minus five, four, three..."

Abbie gets frustrated a lot now. This is one of the developmental milestones I see listed for a 2-year-old, but this one is a lot less enjoyable than some of her other milestones, like cooing, crawling, or forming firmer stools.

It’s bad that I often don’t know what she wants, or even what set her off. At breakfast the other day, she was happily eating Tasteeos when I gave her her milk. She grabbed her cup, threw it without even trying to drink from it, and suffered a category-4 meltdown. I kept trying to give return her milk, and she kept trying to give it to the dog, screaming the whole time. Eventually I released her from her highchair, and she promptly crumbled into a blubbering mess on the floor, defeated by, um, the frigidity of her sippy cup?

I know that the rules say when a toddler throws a tantrum, the worst thing you can do is give her attention because that will just encourage the outbursts. I ignored her for a couple minutes while finishing my breakfast, but the screaming continued without sign of slowing. I then realized that whoever wrote the rules didn’t have twins trying to sleep 20-feet away and separated by only a couple sheets of drywall, several coats of paint, and possibly a little asbestos for a noise barrier. I sang to her a little, calmed her down, and restored the sippy cup to her hands, which she now greedily consumed before toddling into the living room to destroy more of her books.

It doesn’t always help to know what’s frustrating her either. One of her favorite toys involves dropping balls into an enclosed vertical maze of tilted ledges, kind of like Lombard Street except no one will hassle you for trying to take a picture of it. As the balls drop, they clunk and ring bells on their way down before popping out of a hole in the bottom. It’s a pretty slick toy that at least keeps me entertained for a few minutes, but it only works if it stays upright. Abbie hasn’t quite grasped this concept, as she likes to tip the toy on its side, and then doesn’t understand why the balls won’t come out of the hole. She’ll reach in to pull the balls out, falls short, and then howls in frustration. If I’m available I can easily return the toy to its upright position, but she tends to play with it just beyond arm’s reach while I’m feeding the twins. If I’m lucky, I can distract her with another toy. If I’m not lucky, at least it only takes me about 20 minutes to feed the twins.

The worst part of her frustration spells is her coping mechanism. While older people can count to ten before acting or repeat a soothing word to avoid calm themselves down, Abbie tends to bang her head on the ground, and hard enough to sound like someone knocking on the floor. This interesting technique at least takes her mind off whatever was frustrating her before, but it’s replaced with a splitting headache. She’ll then get frustrated that her head hurts, which she’ll cope with by banging her head on the ground again. It’s a vicious cycle that I can only solve with a little singing, or possibly a toy. I just have to make sure the toy is upright before she starts playing with it.