The Sun, the Sweet and the Sour

Good gravy!  I'm not quite sure where the last two months have gone.   I think my absence has mostly been thanks to summer; we've been spending a lot more time at playgrounds and splash pads.  I know that I rave frequently about the fact that Thumper has just gotten more fun as he's gotten older... but I can't help it, it's true!  I'm laughing all day long.

Just today, I was gathering up the sheets for the wash while Thumper ran back and forth from the bathroom (where the washer is).  He'd already "helped" me put in the pillowcases and I was grabbing the fitted sheets.  I walked in with the sheets to find Thumper, dragging his stroller blanket across the floor to put in the wash, so proud.  He'd also added a random pajama top from the hamper.  If I could have passed out from cuteness I would have.

However, not everything is fun.  Here are a few things that have ranged from not-so-funny to making-me-pull-out-my-metaphorical-hair:

- The trash.  He tries to put random items in the garbage (the dark side of that washing machine story).  When I tell him not to, or try to stop him, he thinks it's a game.  I don't know if the solution is just to get locking cans; the cans we have are fairly recent so we don't particularly want new ones, but who knows what we've thrown away already.

- The night terrors.  Every so often - maybe a few times a month - we have a day or two of extremely bad sleeping and what I think are night terrors.  He wakes up, not crying, but screaming.  He seems awake, but totally irrational, pointing at random stuff, then pushing it away, wanting down, wanting up, freaking out the entire time.  There's no "trick" to ending it that I've found; it just eventually does, and he's totally back to normal (I, on the other hand, want to go rock back and forth in a corner).

It's so distressing because he's still mostly nonverbal, so he can't even tell me what's wrong, or if, say, it's not a dream at all and he's in pain.  And while we're on the issue of screaming...

- The temper tantrums.  They seem to come and go in waves, where we'll have several good days and then a few bad ones (which of course feel twice as long).  I've read the Happiest Toddler on the Block and, unlike Happiest Baby, I haven't been able to make it work for me.  Most of the book - more or less toddler psychology - is interesting and a good reminder, but the actual technique of halting a temper tantrum has been a fail for me so far.  And like the night terrors, we have the same issue of a mostly nonverbal toddler.  It's hard to know what he can understand, what the expectations should be, etc.  I feel like it's been months and months since I've felt the need to obsessively confer with Doctor Google and His Mommy Coffee Klatch, but I think I'll be spending a little time with them soon.

But honestly this sort of stuff is not the majority of the day.  And, likely because it's stimulating, I think taking him out to playgrounds, etc improves everyone's mood and patience, so the weather has good timing.

The sun makes everything better