Sometimes the tantrum occurs once a day but other times it's twice a day. And often it is not preventable because she has some irrational desires and cannot control the intensity of her emotions. For instance, wanting to take off her coat and then wanting to put it back on. Wearing 3 pairs of pants and refusing to let me take even one off.. Such things lead to tantrums and she is often inconsolable and wailing for 20 mins. It breaks my heart. Online advise recommend letting her cry till she comes to me but i dunno how to do this without feeling pain in my heart - other advise include trying to prevent it from happening. Sometimes i can distract and delay it but it's almost like it's waiting to happen then kaboom! OMG..
Maybe it was the illness that brought it on. 2 weeks ago, she suddenly woke up covered in vomit. We thought it was a one off but she soon vomited all her food and had diarrhea. Then she was extremely cranky and we had to give in because we thought she was uncomfortable. It was a difficult time because we never experienced her this sick before (lost weight and looked so tired) and to complicate matters, I fell sick with the same problem too. It also happened the weekend where I had my classes so that made it doubly bad. We brought her to the pediatrician who said that she probably caught a virus that has been flying around and she could go back to her normal diet but we would still see signs of the diarrhea for a few more days. Poor baby.
The result of this whole affair is that she doesn't want to have a bath anymore. not sure why but perhaps she spent so much time in the toilet that she has a phobia for the bath - but she still is ok with the potty. Many of the tantrums were linked to having a shower, so much so that we just had to wash her bum and wipe her down. Not a very clean baby.. Now we have to creative and use the watering can to entertain her.. then in the midst of playing the game, pour water over her, get her wet and then we can persuade her to take off her top.. Otherwise it is another issue of contention. It's been fun trying to entertain her but honestly i miss hearing her have fun when in the bath.
She has also started to sleep later despite the day getting shorter. She still wakes up really early (internal body clock!) so we are getting less sleep and there is so much work to be done. We are trying a new strategy of starting dinner earlier in the hope of beginning her post-dinner routine earlier. Let's hope it will work.
On a positive note, she has such an expanded vocabulary and can say phrases of words. She likes to say 'What's that' to unfamiliar sounds or 'who's that' when someone knocks on the door. She can also name all the characters in Handy Manny and has become addicted to seeing pictures of thomas, dora and others on the google images website. She still loves tv so we try to restrict her watching time and get her to clean up before watching. Potty training has been good and she will tell us that she has to go pee pee and very often, she is right on target. When busy, she will forget to tell us about the pee but the poo is almost 100%. Thank goodness that training was not negated by the illness and she is not protesting about that. Phew.. there is a silver lining in the clouds after all.
Will post more later. Very tired but just wanted to recall this experience before I forgot it.
