Lillian Saleh: When the ‘terrible twos’ strike early and there is nowhere to hide
THE ‘terrible twos’ are a fact of life. But what do you do when they strike eight months early and in public? Lillian Saleh found out recently — and it wasn’t pretty.
Parenting
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THE terrible twos have struck early, eight months early in fact. And I’m so not ready. The food throwing. The hands thumping on the table. The wriggling and climbing out of the high chair. The back arching. The high-pitched scream. Dear Lord the high-pitched scream!
I can handle it when we are at home because I figure the neighbours have kids and surely they would empathise.
And I never really thought I’d ever be worried about what strangers thought. I give pretty good side eye, so figured I’d just throw a dirty look back at anyone throwing one my way. But I was kidding myself.
It’s only recently we started going out for dinner as a family. A chance to get out of the house and, to be honest, not worry about cooking with a toddler clinging to my leg or trying to stick his head in the oven.
We timed it and left the house after he woke from an hour nap, thinking he’d be in a happy mood. Wrong.
From the moment he was strapped into his high chair he wanted to be free. Rookie mistake not taking a toy with us, so I gave him the packet of wipes to play with. Rookie error No. 2. He pulled the wipes out of the packet and refused to let go when I tried to take it back. And out came the high-pitched screech.
Dinner arrived and he still wasn’t happy. No amount of sweet talking could convince him to eat anything and when he finally did put something in his mouth, he’d spit it straight out or make a show of throwing it on the floor.
The husband and I scoffed our meals and got out of there as fast as we could.
A dear friend recently posted a picture of her son lying on the ground after a public meltdown. I hit the “ha” button on Facebook but then thought: “OMG that’s so going to be us one day!”
But as I cradled my little boy to sleep that night, his beautiful little face all angelic — I couldn’t help but laugh to myself at what antics he will get up to in the morning. And I couldn’t wait to find out.