Saturday, August 7, 2010

Where does it come from?

Today started off really well. R had signed up for a swim meet on base and the kids and I went to cheer him on. There wasn't much turnout, so we were there less than an hour and half and R swam well. Actually, everyone that we saw swim did well.

Afterwards we went to the commissary, then to return some movies, and we came home. I weeded one of the flower beds which was sorely, sorely overdue. We had lunch, we played Super Mario Brothers with the kids and other than having to fuss at T for yelling at S about not playing the game right (and in case you were wondering, 'right' by T's definition means 'not the way I want' and is subject to change with each passing second. It's a little stressful) we had a great day.
R grilled turkey burgers for lunch then was nice enough to take the kids out of the house so I could do some in depth cleaning. Things were fine. Until they weren't.

I'm still not sure what happened. T just lost it and I know part of it is that he's angry that I left. He cried when they took me to the airport and it broke my heart. But I also know that the kids were going to be just fine with R while I was gone.

Since I've been back, he's thrown spaghetti at me (because we didn't have the type of garlic bread he wanted) and now the massive tantrum last night because he ate some chips, deliberately made a mess, and we made him clean it up.

Seriously little man? Seriously!??!

I had to forcibly brush his teeth last night and he was so full of rage and anger that I was in tears on his behalf. This poor kid. What on earth must be going on in his head that causes him to act out like this? I'm so concerned for S and what growing up with this kind of anger is going to do to her. Tonight? I asked her to go into her room and shut the door so she wouldn't be within striking distance of T if he got out of control. Then I started to wonder - what happens when R and I can't physically restrain him anymore? ::shudder:: I think we are going to look into behavioral therapy for him, we just don't know what else to do right now. But this is so unhealthy and I'm worried that there's something big that I'm missing.

And on that note, I'm going to bed and hoping that this will all look better in the morning. It will, right?

2 comments:

Samantha said...

To me, it's an incredible thing that you don't let tantrums give way to letting your little one do whatever he wants. That takes strength from the both of you! Good for you!!

I know it must be hard, but as long as you're doing your best, you're doing great parenting, imho! :-)

Brooke said...

Thank you! I needed to hear that today. Sigh.