Tantrums By: Sarah

 I love the boy who’s internal alarm wakes him at 6:00 am everyday of the week regardless of what time his head hit the pillow the night before.  I love how the first thing he does when he wakes up, is come to me to say, “Good morning!” and then crawl into my arms asking to, “snuggle”. 

Isaac is my most affectionate child.  He loves to rub noses, give kisses, and he asks me to reach my hand back to him in the car so he can hold it.

Sitting folding clothes or watching a movie or something else sedentary and I’ll find myself under siege.  Isaac will have jumped on me, grabbing my face, kissing me all over.  He is full to the brim with a love and excitement for life and his family.

Isaac also tantrums.  He might be the king of tantrumers (If that is even a word).  The same boy who asks if he can scratch my back “softly” was the culprit in this story:

Isaac’s teacher praised him when I picked him up from preschool.  He had a GREAT day.  So on the way to pick up the girls from school we stopped at 7eleven and I gifted him his own bag of Cheetos and a blue Slurpee.  He was in heaven.  When the girls saw his spoils they, of course, wanted their own due rewards and so on the way home, I stopped at a different 7eleven because... I am a HUGE PUSH OVER.  The plan originally was for all of us to enter the 7eleven TOGETHER while Isaac amiably watched the girls choose and purchase their own Slurpees, with complete understanding that he’d already enjoyed his. 

I don’t know what dream world I was living in, but that is NOT what happened.  Isaac felt completely jilted.  He began one of his epic tantrums, so I handed the girls a 5-dollar bill and coolly explained to Isaac that he was on time out in the car and would be allowed out when he was calm and could use a “soft voice” and “nice words”.  I shut the van door and stood outside to keep watch over him.  He soon climbed into the front seat and began honking the horn repeatedly.  I was still calm, but I could feel my cool starting to melt.  I opened the door explaining, firmly, that he had to stay in his car seat, buckled up.  He refused.  So I scooped him up, which was the catalyst to something very ugly.  He went into full on raging bull mode:  screaming, snorting, and flailing about.  My calm and collected demeanor went from “beginning to melt” to full on steaming mad.  As I struggled with the wild boy, somehow two of his Cheeto dust covered fingers each ended up fish hooked into my nostrils, and, having finally found a solid hold on me, Isaac dug those cheesy fingers in and wouldn’t let go.  Through gritted teeth and with a scary devil-like voice I *asked * him to release my nostrils and sit down.  I think he realized that while, perhaps he had won a very small battle, he had started a war he could never win simply based on body size ratio.  He sat down, defeated and crying and I turned around to see a police officer standing behind me, watching the whole scene play out. 

Shocked, I gave an anxious laugh, brushing my tousled hair out of my face.  I vacillated between giggling, “Oh this?  This is nothing.   Just a little game we play called... Cheeto Man vs. Devil Mom.” or diving in my van and speeding out of there yelling, “You’ll never catch me copper!”  I settled on a jumpy, “Oh!  Hello!”

      

I tried to inconspicuously brush the Cheeto powder from around my nostrils while simultaneously trying to recall what coercive threats I had murmured in the midst of the mêlée.

The officer looked at me and laughed, saying something about how he knows how Isaac feels and that he feels like he needs a time out every morning when his alarm goes off...blah, blah, blah.  I don’t really remember exactly what he said as I was more concerned about him thinking I had a Cheeto snorting habit that might need a night in the slammer to fix.   

My girls finally exited 7eleven with their Slurpees, as the officer entered and I tore out of that parking lot like a bat out of Hades!  (While still obeying every traffic law).

Could this be the same little boy who woke up with an “I love you” on his lips, full of hugs and kisses?

That night, at bedtime, Isaac had a really hard time settling down.  He cried and cried and wouldn’t stop.  I finally asked him what the problem was and he responded, “My heart feels sad.  I want my heart to feel happy.  Will you fix it?”

Sometimes I look at Isaac and I imagine what it would be like to only be able to remember him.  What would I remember?  What would I forget?  And then I have to stop because it hurts too much. 

The truth is, what makes Isaac amazing, tender, and lovable is the same stuff that makes him frustrating, difficult, and exasperating.  His vigor and love for life is all balled up with his tendency to become angry and fight vehemently for what he wants and thinks he needs. 

So full of contradiction.  So full of highs and lows.  All emotions are full throttle.  Love, hate, rage, glee.  And while I don’t enjoy every second of his very dynamic personality, I do love every bit of who he is.

And as his momma, maybe I need to just take a breath and enjoy it completely, set aside the scary devil voice (most of the time) and just breathe all of him in, Cheeto dust and all.