Working!
December 28, 2007 by piereth
and this is no bad thing, despite the fact than any sensible 9 to 5er would have inveigled all the time between Christmas and New Year off.
I’ve had a busy day with a colleague, planning our line of attack for the New Year, and now I’m catching up on my sites and listening to really loud and antisocial music and eating chocolate buttons. Yippee for me!
Actually, I’m glad I’m here- I needed a break after yesterday. Nothing woke Mouse up, so the religious nutbar et al must have heard me snarling and stayed away! However, we’re deep, deep into tantrum country - he’s started grabbing great handfuls of his face and pinching it while screaming and drumming his heels. Horrible to watch, but he’s so frustrated by his inability to tell us what he wants that he loses what little speech he has and becomes rigid with rage. Management strategies seem useless. After 11 or 12 episodes of this yesterday, one of them in Marks and Spencers, I stopped getting stressed and just felt blunted instead. If anyone’s got any bright ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Meanwhile, it’s raining like a million ants doing ‘Riverdance’ on the roof of the unit. I’m warm, busy and calm. Bliss.
Piereth, I’m so sorry to read of the tantrums! I had a coworker once who used to talk of how she distracted her kids from making such a ruckus. She could see the beginnings of a tantrum and had some success providing a distraction. She had a knack for diverting their attention from whatever upset them.
Don’t know if that’s possible or of much help, but sometimes it worked for her.
Distraction is a good one; another which works too is to make them laugh - how is something I haven’t got to yet but I’m workin on it!!!
Sometimes this works for me: throw something up in the air, and let it hit you on the head. Act comically surprised and fall down dramatically. Amazingly simple, but effective.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll exclaim “No! That’s not crying. THIS is crying!”. Proceed to flail arms about wildly while making fake tantrum sounds, hurling self onto couch, kicking feet and scrunching face. You may need a new couch after this one, depending on your weight and distance from the couch when you try it (I am already out of trouble for that, and boy is our new couch nice!). Also, it may make him madder than ever. So, on second thought, don’t try this one.
As a last resort, try taking out the sound circuitry or hitting the mute button.
Actually, that falling down one is a stroke of genius. I would expect nothing less from you, Robodad!
ps can’t work out where the batteries go and I’ve lost the remote so that’ll have to do!