Tantrums

My nickname growing up was "Screaming Mimi". I've heard the story of my mother's total embarrassment as I threw myself on the floor in a rage at the grocery store and customers gave her "the why can't you control your child" look story a hundred times. What goes around comes around, I suppose, because the tantrums have begun in the Palmer house.

We have been warned for years now and knew it was only a matter of time. Two was fairly easy, with only brief glimpses of naughty behavior and aggression. But three is here and a certain little somebody is clearly testing his boundaries on an all-to-regular basis. The word "no" is shrieked, cried, and/or screamed at least a hundred sixty-seven times a day. Sometimes it is accompanied by tears and whining, other times with flailing arms attempting to hit anything in their path. I have no idea what to do, no idea how to handle it. A huge part of me just says to ride it out. To accept that this is three. I'm not giving in to this little being who will go into hysterics over anything from wanting watermelon "RIIIIIGHT NOW!" to having a single grain of sand in his shoe and it makes it that much harder. I am standing firm, pulling my hair out, and sometimes even giggling. I just want it to end. Please, please, please tell me it will end.