The rantings and ravings of a toddler...

Behold, the broken mobile on the left...

So, those of you who know Lia fairly well know that she has been a pleasant and patient girl with a very happy temperament ever since she was a little baby. However, the tantrum has slowly been making its way into her personality the past few months, but they are nothing ever major. She will either throw what I call a "mini tantrum" that lasts a few seconds and then suddenly disappears or she gets very upset over something she is not pleased with, but will completely stop whenever the problem is solved. However, today, Lia took it to a whole new level. The level that I have seen in other peoples' kids over the years, but never my own. Oh, did I ever eat my words today?!
So, if you read my previous post, you will see that I just returned from a 4-day weekend on the East coast. As with most vacations, I seem to always return home to a list of things to do. Since I am working the next two days, I decided to aggressively tackle the list this morning and embarked on making a bunch of necessary phone calls. While I was doing this, I ignored Lia. But, in my defense, I put in her ol' favorite, Finding Nemo, and thought that we would be good to go. Wrong. For some reason, Lia decided that she wanted my attention over Bruce's! (I know, I know....miracles do happen from time to time!) After quickly learning that I was not available, she started to scream and cry. Since I was on the phone, I just shut the office door and let her continue with the tantrum on her own. As a result, the tantrum increased exponentially and went on for many, many minutes. Wow. After I finally finished with my last phone call, I quickly hung up and went to join her. But, the damage had already been done. The 15 or so minutes had fueled her tantrum into an unstoppable one. She simply continued screaming and crying no matter what book or toy I offered her. There was no reasoning with her. In fact, at this point, all she wanted was her "sucker." But, we have a rule in this house. Sucker equals bedtime. End of story. So, after asking her if she wanted to play with me or go "night night" (which was very early for her daily nap), all I got was more screams and tears. Well, that did it. I promptly marched her upstairs, put her in the crib, and tried to give her the sucker. This made Lia even more furious as she did NOT want to go to bed. She was so upset that she wouldn't even take her sucker. I decided that she needed a few minutes to cool off and shut her door.
Fast forward five minutes, Lia is still screaming in her crib. However, I begin to hear all of these banging and crashing noises from her room above. After listening to this for a minute and wondering what on earth could be causing all of this ruckus, I quickly run upstairs to make sure that Lia and her bedroom are still intact and okay. And, to my surprise, I find the remains of what once was Lia's sweet, little mobile that has faithfully lulled her to sleep every night for over the past year of her life to "Brahm's Lullaby" all over her bedroom floor. How is this possible? Well, apparently, Lia has a bit of Hulkitis. When she gets extremely mad, she develops a super-human strength! While throwing a fit in her bed, she reached up and completely snapped her mobile in two! I know, it's crazy, isn't it?! She then proceeded to throw the various pieces out of her bed and onto her floor, breaking yet another little piece that attaches the music box to the mobile. So, thanks to Lia and her tantrum, her beloved mobile is completely useless. Good grief!
After picking her up and letting her suck on her pacifier for a few minutes, Lia came back down to earth and to reality realizing that her beloved bedtime serenader is "broken." We discussed this fact for quite sometime and for the rest of the day Lia has said her new word, "broken," over and over again. It is quite apparent that she feels some remorse for her actions earlier today. But, there is nothing that can be done.
So, Lia went to bed in complete silence tonight for the first time in forever....