The Category 5 Tantrum

There has been a disturbing and marked change to KK's tantrums over the past couple of weeks. They have become much more intense, much more manipulative, and literally make mommy want to bang her head against the wall. I honestly do not even know how to describe these "advanced tantrums." I feel waves of fear coming over me when I sense them coming! Yesterday KK laid on her Aunt Jen's tile kitchen floor for an hour, writhing around and screaming her head off at full blast. The original source of the tantrum was that she wanted to play in the backyard with the back door wide open. The fact that I wanted to partially close the door was, apparently, completely unacceptable to her.

Thank goodness for my favorite reference book, Toddler 411. At least it gives me a little encouragement that I am not utterly alone. Here is what the author has to say about "The Category 5 Tantrum":

Just for fun, as parents of a toddler, we rated our son's temper tantrums using the Saffir-Simpson scale for measuring hurricanes. Hence, there were minor episodes at toy stores when he didn't want to leave... these were your tropcial storms and Category 1 tantrums. And yes, there were the more rare, yet far more intensive Category 5 melt-downs-you know, like Hurricane Katrina.

So here's a true Fields story of a Cat 5 tantrum: we took our oldest son to a model train show when he was 18 months old. He loved Thomas the Tank Engine, so we knew the show would be right up his alley... until it was time to leave. We figured we'd visit the show in the afternoon about an hour or so before it closed. That way, we'd have an excuse to lave. And dutifully, after an hour of non-stop train fun, we reported to our toddler that it was time to go.

That's when it happened. The Category 5. Our wonderful angel started screaming from the time we walked out the front door and didn't stop for an hour. Yes, a whole hour. As we sat there in a parked car, we realized we needed to leave the vehicle and let him scream it out. So there we were, standing outside our care as our child wailed and wailed.

So how did it end? He exhuasted himself and fell asleep. His mom and dad, however, needed some serious cocktails.