Totally Losing It

I'm pretty sure Jonas woke up this morning in a bad mood. Brandon usually wakes Joe up around 7:15, after I'm out of the shower, and gets him ready for the day. This morning, however, the first words out of Joe's mouth were whining ones. "Where is mommy? I want mommy come get meeeeeheeeeheeee" (remember, whiney, not laughing). Brandon, very reasonably, said that I was getting ready for work and I couldn't come get him out of bed, but that Joe could come find me and say good morning. This was the start of the meltdown of the year. Joe totally lost it. he started screaming and crying and insisted that I come and get him. Well, at this point, I couldn't go in there, because then he would learn that he got his way when he pitched a fit, so Brandon counted him. This was to no avail. Joe got to 3 and got his spanking pretty quickly. This made him more hysterical (usually, it is quite the opposite).

Since the whole ordeal had taken about 10 minutes, I was dressed and ready to go. Joe had quite forgotten why he was hysterical in the first place, and had changed his mind to simply saying that he did not want to leave his room. Brandon was starting to get frustrated, as would you, were you in a room with a very angry 2.5 year old. So, I started to count him from the other room. He alllllmost decided to listen, but then blatantly disobeyed... so he got his second spanking. At this point, Brandon and I are both in the room with him, and he is laying on his bed kicking and screaming "I NO WANT LEAVE MY ROOM!!"

I told Brandon to go ahead and get his other stuff ready and I would take a shift, since It was clear this wasn't going to blow over. I got Jonas calm enough that I was sure he could hear me, and told him he had to come out of his room before I counted to three, or he would receive his third spanking of the morning, and I would remove him from his room anyway. I got to 2 before he, crying hysterically and muttering, waled to the door. He stuck his foot into the hallway, then covered his face, and ran behind his door screaming "I NO WANT LEAVE MY ROOM!". Well, it killed me to have to do it, but I gave him his third, yes, third, spanking of the morning, and carried his flailing body into the main room. At this point, he was so hysterical that I sat on the couch with him and held his little body firmly so that he couldn't move anywhere, and whispered quietly into his ear "I love you little boy, calm down". Eventually the flailing stopped, and we were just left with a sobbing child who continued to mutter over and over "i no want leave my room."

It had been about 45 min. since he woke up. I was late, he was late, it was no good. I really needed to eat, and Brandon volunteered to take him back, at which point, he decided to start freaking out again (no surprise). I ate as fast as I could, and gave both my boys hugs and kisses, and left for work, feeling guilty that there wasn't more I could do. I could hear Joe's enraged screams of "MOMMY, DON'T GO AT WORK!!" as I sat in my car outside.

Brandon called me at 8:15 to give me the report of how the rest of the morning went. He said that he determined that Joe had wanted to go in his room to calm down (a tactic we have used in the past), so he let joe walk back to his room for about 3 min-- the longest he could wait to get Joe to school before breakfast. As soon as he came to get the now calm Jonas, Joe starting to totally lose it again. Having no choice, he wrestled Jonas into his clothes, the whole time kicking and screaming. The ride to school was more the sobbing and muttering than screams, thankfully. Brandon said as they entered the school, Jonas decided it was time to be clingy and make nice with daddy. Brandon told the teacher (Ms. Keisha) what was going on, and Ms. Keisha smiled and said "ok, Joe, let's go to breakfast!" Jonas loses it again. This time in a "NO WANT GO WITH MISS KEISHA, WANT DADDY!" sort of way. Brandon said you would have thought he'd dropped Joe off at a concentration camp as crazy as Joe was acting. Ms Keisha was carrying joe away, but Jonas was reaching over her shoulder for Brandon like he'd never see him again... the whole time screaming and puffy eyed from his hour or so of crying and screaming.

Oh, the joys of parenting!

Of course, when I got home Joe was perfectly fine, as if nothing had happened. I didn't think about it till I mentioned the tantrum at work, but somebody said it must be because of the full moon-- and I bet he's right... Joe does seem to go crazier when the moon is full!