Little Person, Giant Meltdown

Perhaps it's a rule of nature for small creatures to compensate for their, uhm, smallness.

That could explain why the teeny-tiny ant has such painful bite or why Pinschers have a nasty bark. It would also explain why toddlers and preschoolers have tantrums as devastating as Milenyo. Their inability to orally express themselves adds gustiness to the hurricane that is known by the international designation Tantrum.

Baby Cat had a major meltdown the other Sunday. It was one of those rare supertyphoons that took half an hour to calm down. That's an execptionally long tantrum for Laila.

She was screaming, thrashing, pushing, stomping and hurling all the invectives she knew.

'Mommy, get out! Get out!...You go on time out!...Time out! 10 minutes! Time out!'

And all that for a lollipop with a light-up handle that I mistakenly whisked from her without warning. A lot of blame is on me, I know.

I took the lollipop without asking and it was plain rude. But it was waaay past her bedtime and I knew she was tired from the daylong excursion. And, let me stress this, she wasn't even licking the lollipop. (The morning after I realize that she didn't want the whole lollipop, just the handle! If I knew, I would've thrown out the candy and let her play a little with the friggin stick.)

Poor baby. She was so tired and I ticked her off even more. I tried to pacify her, but she was beyond the point of being pacified.

'Get out Mommy. Leave me alone!' she sobbed.

Of course I wasn't about to let her be by herself in that state. To begin with, we never really leave her alone in a room because she might mistakenly lock herself in. Plus, it was also my bedtime and I was not inclined to stand up from bed.

'Let's just pretend Mommy isn't here, Ok?'

She paused a little, looking at me.

'But you're still there! Waaaaahhhhhhhh!!!'

At that point I hid my face behind one of the pillows. I wasn't about to add insult to injury by letting her see me laugh at her.

+++

Baby Cat calmed down 5 minutes after that conversation. We went to bed snickering that we beat Daddy Cat to sleep.

I've read a lot of literature explaining a little person's tantrums but I can never fully understand how they achieve a full recovery so quickly. They're like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Bruce Banner and The Hulk.