Seabreeze, God will bless 瑜霞.
Don't worry and you take care too!
Terrible 2:
Yes, I'm also learning to deal with it too.
Vera would lie with her tummy on the floor and do the "breast stroke", cry/yell/shout when things not happening according to her way. She does this especially when outside like the shopping mall, kiddy palace when we want her to go home and she refuses to leave...
she would struggle and swing her hands left to right, hitting me or pinch my neck to show her fustration when I tried to hold her up. What I usually do is to put her down and let her continue with her "act", soon she would realise that she has a lot of "audience". Only then she would stop and come to me. ONly then she would listen and I can start to reason out with her or negotiate with her to stay a little longer and we have to go home.
When at home, I realise sometimes she would do some forbidden things to seek our attention. She would try to go near the plugs while looking at me and see if I would stop her. If no reaction from me, she goes a little closer until I do something. There was once, I was working with my laptop, she came into the study room, walked to where I seated tipped toe and reached for the mouse and look at me while banging the mouse on the study table. I asked why were she doing it while mummy was working, she said: "baobao...." For this, I gave in. I mean looking at her innocent angelic look, how could I reject her... But sometimes she really driving me nuts when she keeps crying when she wants something and refuse to follow our instruction. There were few occasions, we wanted her to keep her toys first before we left home for dinner, she refused and kept saying "out...out.. walkwalk.. walkwalk" And she purposely threw the toys out of the box to "protest". We spent quite a long time to finally made her keep her toys. A lot of crying/yelling from her, a lot of talking/reasoning/negotiating whatever you call it from us..., When she cried... we let her cry coz we know it's pointless since she won't listen. We wait until she stops crying. We were fustrated too but we can't show it and keeps telling ourselves to keep cool. Like many mummies said, if we give in this time, she'll do the same next time. It's always a battle and the ones with more patience win. Thus we usually late for dinner/appointment with friends and family. Sometimes I was so angry that broke my rule of not beating her and always regretted myself big time after that... especially when I saw my hand mark on her thigh... I felt like crying... I finally realised how my mother felt when she caned me.
Oh, I notice something quite useful. Instead of ordering her to do something, I would suggest or ask for her "help". Like I would tell her, would you like to do this, why don't you do that, it's better. Sometimes, I would say, Vera could you help mummy to keep the toys? I realise she seems to like responsiblity... maybe that makes her feel like a grown up... I guess...
Srumpee, I understand how you feel when our little ones don't progress like the majority. But since you said that he understands instruction, I believe it's just a matter of time for him to speak up. Some kids including mine.. sigh... just don't like to be forced to do something.
Jennifer, we want 2 but still pondering if we should go for #2 now. We find it rather challenging to discipline Vera and we have no confidence if we can handle another child...
P.seed, I hope you're feeling better now. The weather has been quite bad lately. Vera also cries the first thing she wakes up in the morning usually does this when she can't see me first thing when she wakes up. And when she saw me she would say "baobao" and my hug does calm her down... I believe our littles do this for our attention.