The Slamming Door

Elijah has been impatient and has had a temper since birth. When he had a wet diaper, he wanted it changed NOW. Can’t blame him for that. When he was hungry, he wanted fed IMMEDIATELY. That’s understandable too. Momma was a milking machine. He wanted out of his car seat as soon as the motor was off. He wanted out of his crib the second he was awake…whether we had our coffee or not.  When these things didn't happen as soon as he realized he wanted them, he let us know. He had the reddest face of any blond boy ever.

 

We have noted that, as Elijah grows older, his way of dealing with his temper has changed. He still cries when he doesn’t get his way. Talking to him to explain the reasons why the answer is no is harder now that he is four. Because he is very independent. And, heaven help us, because he has his own opinion now. He has lots of opinions on just about every subject that comes up. He's such a guy.

I'll sit in time out but I'll do it the way I want to.

 

When he was two, saying no brought on a temper tantrum to bring down the house. He would lay on the floor, as most twos are prone to do, kicking his feet and getting red in the face. We would ignore him for the most part, just making sure he didn’t hurt himself or break anything. Eventually it would go away and he would be his own sweet self again.

When he reached three, he had words to go along with his tantrum. He would scream “I want it” over and over until we were ready to “give it to him”. Of course we didn’t but the thought was in the front of our minds. The tantrums were epic in proportion but didn’t last quite as long as the earlier ones. When he realized he wasn’t getting what he wanted, he found something else to do. He’s growing out of them, we thought innocently. We were wrong. Oh boy, were we wrong.

Now that we are in the fours, the aforementioned opinions have kicked in. Not being able to drink from the milk jug is “stupid”. The fact that we don’t allow him to practice his artwork on the walls makes us “meaners.” Watching the evening news (or anything else that doesn’t air on Disney) just shouldn’t be permitted. This is when we hear…dum dum dum…the slamming door. He stomps to his bedroom, muttering whatever nasty thing he can think of (and I don’t want to know) and we wait for it. Five. Four. Yes, we count it down. Three. Two…SLAM!!! The door opens, he yells out that we are the evilest, vilest creatures on the face of the earth (my words there, not his) and … yes, SLAM!!! The next thing you hear is YaYa’s feet stomping down the hall. You can guess the rest and door slamming is over. For the moment.

AUTHORS NOTE: Elijah is not injured or abused in any form during the door slamming incidents. His ears, however, occasionally ring at the volume of my voice.

Elijah has also discovered the threat of law enforcement. When we tell him he’s not allowed to go to his friends house to play because he hasn’t picked up his toys, he tells us he is going to call the police and have them take us to jail (insert the Southern form of jail which has six syllables). Sheriff Jimmy is his friend and he apparently has handcuffs to take away bad parents and grandparents. Sometimes we are tempted to let the good sheriff cuff us and go just to have a night of peace and quiet.

That, peeps, is life with the current version of Elijah. It’s strange that I am blissfully forgetful of these trying times when I was raising my own children. I’m sure that now it’s just amplified because I am a little older now…OK, FINE, I’m a lot older now. My only hope is that my sanity will survive the raising of this child or that Deanna will find a home many miles from mine before he reaches his teen aged years.