What they don’t tell you is that the Terrible Twos don’t start when your child turns two. They start at the beginning of the second year. Meaning the 13th month. What they also don’t tell you is that the Terrible Twos are nothing compared to the “Fucking Fours.” At four they’ve got attitude. They talk back. And the meltdowns can be monumental.
A few weeks back we were out to lunch for Jen’s birthday at one of our new favorite joints called The Corner. Everything was going swimmingly until Arden asked Jen to help her color the menu picture and Jen had the audacity to use the orange crayon. Arden demanded Jen get rid of the orange. Of course there was no way to remove the crayon from the picture, at least not with a fork and knife. We explained this to Arden six ways to Sunday, but this Sunday Arden wasn’t listening to reason and just kept saying, “Get the orange off,” until she started to scream and we were forced to leave the restaurant before our meals were finished. For that one, Arden lost dessert for a week.
Not long before that we were up at Universal City Walk for a brunch with our friends Chapin & Greg and Arden ended up having the mother of all meltdowns. After a great meal at the Saddle Ranch (the location of 90 percent of movies and TV shows that require an electronic bull) I decided to treat Arden to something inside the Universal Studios store. But when she didn’t like her choices she threw a fit, screeching and crying at the top of her lungs. When Jen tried to calm her down, Arden actually punched Jen in the face. That’s when I took over. I picked her up, threw her over my shoulder and started to carry her back to the car. She continued to scream and flail and even began foaming at the mouth. Seriously. Actual foam was coming out of her mouth. All of this in front of literally thousands of staring eyes, waiting in line to enter the theme park. I was too pissed to care, but if Chapin and Greg were even remotely considering having kids, this event surely tipped the scales into the “con” category.
Before Jen and I became parents we used to see others kids having meltdowns and we would put our noses up in the air and say, “We’re never gonna have a kid like that.” Boy we’re we wrong. No amount of good parenting can prevent the Fucking Fours from creeping up on you. It just happens. But I think Arden’s been in a bad place as of late because Alex is hitting all kinds of milestones and getting all sorts of praise and attention so Arden’s jealousy and sibling rivalry is kicking back into full gear. But it’s one thing to be a little jealous and it’s another to talk back to your preschool teachers and belt another little girl in the mouth when she says she doesn’t want to play with you. Yup, my daughter is a bully.
I’ve been working on this post for a while; I had paragraphs written about how I’m at a loss over Arden’s behavior and how to fix it. How we tried every form of punishment imaginable, sans spanking. How we’ve counseled her to count to ten when she gets frustrated or tell a teacher when another kid is being mean to her. But every time I start back in on this post Arden will turn around and be the greatest kid in the world.
Not too long ago we went out and bought Jen a new car. And as anyone knows who’s bought a car, it’s not a quick process. From the test drive to the haggling to the paperwork to the actual drive off, you can be there for at least six hours. And when you live 3000 miles from your closest family member you've got no choice but to bring along the brood. But amazingly Arden was a perfect angel that day. Granted she got to go on all the test drives, but the rest of the time she just played by herself, had a few snacks and pretty much left us alone to do our business. It didn't hurt that the dealership made fresh chocolate chip cookies every hour and had a kid's playroom that was airing Nickelodeon all day, but hey, it was still six hours that she had to play pretty much by herself.
Recently Arden was going through another rough patch and we decided the week before Halloween that we were going to take away Halloween from her and that she had to earn Halloween back. And I’ll be damned, it worked. She was good all last week at school. No screaming, no talking back and counting to ten when she got frustrated. Even the teachers remarked how great she had been. Of course the morning after Halloween she got a little uppity when I ate one of her Nestle Crunch bars. But hey, she's four, I'll take uppity over a meltdown any day.
Photos: Top - Arden (at 2 1/2) after TV was taken away; Bottom - The Gang getting ready to get our treat on.
I don't think it gets better when she turns 5. My niece was five when she came to visit me last November. She was great during the whole trip, but when she and my sister-in-law were getting ready to leave, Lyla pitched a fit because she wanted to wear a certain outfit on the plane, but it was dirty and my sis-in-law told her she couldn't wear it. Lyla kept crying. Angell (sis-in-law) finally told her to cry all she wanted because she was leaving her with me and she (Angell) was going back home. That made Lyla scream and cry harder. It took about half an hour to finally get her to go. After they left, I was so thankful that I didn't have children. Recently, since turning 30, I started to kind of want children again. Thank you for this post. You just set me straight. :)
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