Welcome to the Toddlerdome

We spent last week in the Outer Banks at a lovely house that we rented with my parents. We could see both the ocean to the east and Pamlico Sound to the west from the greatroom at the heart of the house. Courtesy of my parents' eagerness to babysit, Sam and I got to go out almost every day on our own, and Allison Clare learned lots of new things, like that crackers can be eaten on the couch and that when you honk Grandpop's nose, it sounds like it's broken.

Without housework to do, or even much cooking (besides babysitting, my mother also cooked for us on vacation!), I got to take naps when AC took her naps, or read for pleasure, to the extent that I was rested enough that I was even interested in doing some academic reading I had brought along, a state I hadn't experienced in a while. Ahh . . .

But the real point of this post is not to wax nostalgic about our trip; it's to note that Allison Clare has pretty much effected her transformation from infant to toddler. While she still doesn't walk independently (and I wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't start until close to age two, since she didn't crawl until a couple of weeks before her first birthday), she's handily mastered what appears to be the signature achievement of the toddler: the temper tantrum.

It's kind of hilarious, but also exasperating. She wants things exactly the way she wants them: she does not want the puffs from the jar; nor does she want the jar if you are going to hold onto it along with her; she does not want the jar with the lid on it. Nothing will do except to hold the jar without your hand on it, and without the lid, and to shake the open jar of puffs all over the car. When she is thwarted en route to this outcome, she writhes and thrashes in violent seizures of tearful, red-faced rage. Then, within a few minutes, she is smiling and laughing and blowing kisses again, while I am aghast. Her fits are not super-frequent yet, but I have a feeling we will see more of them before we see fewer. The little sinner.

She is also growing stronger, but without a conscience commensurate with her strength. She hit me accidentally in the face with something tonight. It was hard enough that I gasped and said gently, "Allison Clare, you hurt mommy!" She looked at me seriously for a split second, then hit me again. And burst into a big smile and gasped herself, beaming expectantly at me like, "Don't forget that part!"

Living with a toddler, I have decided, is like living with a mostly cheerful, affectionate sociopath.