Baby Rage
Axel still gets mad when he’s tired, and even more mad when someone tries to help him address the problem of exhaustion by encouraging him to sleep. He screams and cries and then, a few minutes later, a switch gets flipped and he’s suddenly silent and asleep. There’s no winding down – it’s yell yell yell yell yell yell yell zzzzzzzz.
The other night, Sean was reading the great classic The Grouchy Ladybug to Axel. Axel likes to speed-read, so there’s just enough time to repeat, “Wanna fight?” or identify the sparrow on the page before moving on to the next page. Once the ladybugs were happily eating aphids together, Sean offered Axel a bottle. Axel drank a little and sweetly, angellically, nuzzled into his father’s chest. Then he decided he wanted a little more milk and did his adorable open bird-mouth request for a nipple. Sean offered him the bottle.
Axel (perhaps in homage to the grouchy ladybug) screamed at the bottle and pushed it away as violently as you can push something when you weigh less than a case of beer. This is the normal reaction to something that you’ve asked for – screaming and pushing. I like to do that after I order in restaurants – “Salmon? You think I ordered the salmon? Well you can take that perfectly cooked salmon and stuff it! And don’t even think of offering me that molten chocolate cake for dessert!”
So, Sean put Axel down in his crib for a few minutes, because Axel had made it very clear that he didn’t want anything that his parents could provide. Axel wailed. After a few minutes, Axel hadn’t fallen asleep, so Sean went back in and found that Axel had, in his rage, taken off his pants. There he was, sitting up in his crib on top of his grandma-made sock monkey quilt, pantsless. After reporting to me that our son got so angry he took off his drawers, and trying to stifle his laughter, Sean went in and re-dressed Axel, offered him a little more milk, and Axel went off to dreamland.
In addition to angry pants and sock removal (maybe because his legs and feet get hot when he’s mad? or because his pants are a symbol of the man holding him down and requiring that he wear clothes? Perhaps it’s early rebellion against the dress code he’ll encounter in middle school?), Axel has two other ways of showing his anger: an angry dinosaur shriek triggered when he can’t have something sharp and pointy and likely to strangle him, and exertion farts. When he’s particularly mad, he flings back his body, screams, and lets out some loud gas. This makes it hard to take his anger seriously. He’s so mad that he toots. I know I shouldn’t laugh, but it’s hard to keep a straight face at a pantsless, farting kid who lets out high-pitched velociraptor sounds audible to dogs a few states over, all because I won’t let him wrap a jump rope around his neck.
(Picture taken just before a scream at the horror of having to go out to breakfast.)
So, how about you? What funny things do your children do when angry?
Aw! I know well that shriek of anger and am now getting to the stage of the clothes being pulled off now. My booga also farts when he’s angry, he’ll nurse while making all these angry noises and then out comes a lot of toots and then he’s quiet. Ah but I think the feet do get warm when angry…or it’s just among red-headed babies that it happens.
“One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato-Hey! Put those pants back on! No no, do not attempt to take off your diaper!” And then comes the he-man struggle to rip open the front of his onesie. Love your blog by the way! ^-^
oh man, you have me cracking up. i swear our kids are related. petunia too like the high velocity screech with a little seizure like shake thrown in just to show me how truely angry she is….like the screeching didn’t clue me in right away.
My daughter has begun with the temper tantrums big time. Whenever I deny her something, ANYTHING, she starts crying and pounding her little fists on whatever is handy: floor, bed, my face. Oh, there’s some screeching thrown in for good measure, but the wailing is the key part. I thought this stubbornness was a symptom of the terrible twos. Not loving the Weally Willful Ones.
Sometimes she’ll get so mad, that she bites furniture. Seriously, I caught her biting the arm of couch this morning because we wouldn’t give her a snack. ‘Course, it is better than biting herself (which she used to do) or attempting to bite on of us…
I usually don’t LITERALLY laugh out loud, but reading this I truly did.
When my son was Axel’s age (he’s now the much more mature 19 months) he went through a biting phase when he was frustrated. But he only ever bit me, thank goodness. He does have a teradactyl screech. And rarely, but memorably, he gets so frustrated and angry that he’ll shake, grit his teeth, and growl. It makes me realize how frustrating it must get to be a toddler. You can’t communicate and people can just pick you up and move you.
Alicia, that’s hilarious!
Cara, I hear you with the Weally Willful Ones. We’re there, big time.
EG & Mommychicky, Axel’s been biting, too. But he doesn’t bite out of rage – he gives love bites, and only to me. I tell him not to bite, and he just laughs. Makes me wonder if he’s developing baby Anti Social Personality Disorder.
I was trying to read this to my husband and cracking up the whole time. I love your description.
When mine gets mad, he just cries. But he has the cutest little sad panda face that it’s hard not to be just a little amused. Especially when he’s totally faking it.
Our Boy, 10 months, also began throwing tantrums in the last couple weeks. It’s kind of shocking how quickly he turns from smiling, chubby-faced boy into screeching, red-faced monster. I love your era name, Cara. The Weally Willful Ones — so appropriate.
And Oz, our kiddo also giggles when I poo-poo the love bites to mama. At least we’re not dealing with biting incident reports from daycare, right.
For some reason this made me think of Marvin the Martian from the Bugs Bunny cartoons: Ooooh, you make me soooo aaaaangry. TOOT.
Out of curiosity, has it occurred to you that Axel is screaming and farting because he has gas, and not farting because he is mad? I don’t know if it happens with any consistency, like after eating a particular food, or if it just always happens, in which case perhaps he is farting because he has gulped so much air from all the screaming. And that kids does not have any disorders. He is just 1. And ADORable.
My girl goes limp, collapses to the ground in huge, heavy sobs and drops her face to the floor. Her forehead goes “bonk!” on the ground. It’s so dramatic, like she snuck in some Sarah Bernhardt actor training on the sly.
And she’s not even 15 months yet. Am I doomed?
MidLifeMama – the gas is random. Sometimes I do think it’s because he’s gulped in air while screaming, as you suggested.
Hillary, I agree; I’m so glad he’s biting me and not kids at daycare!
Joanie, maybe your daughter is just training to be the youngest winner of an Academy Award!
You name it, Michael has done it. He’s bitten furniture, stomped his foot, hit things and people and himself, cried, shrieked, banged his head on his hand or other things or, my personal favorite, sometimes he just full-on catches the vapors and falls out.
The latest is throwing his teething ring down when I leave him at day care: “Take that Mommy!” FYI, he has the teething ring at day care because he has bitten another child more than once. Sigh.
That is a tantrum I think I’d pay to watch…. I don’t think Flann has had a true tantrum yet. He just sobs hysterically when he wants something or is thwarted. But when they emerge I hope they’re as comedic as Axel’s.
This is the funniest post ever. I was cracking up. Mathis does the adorable little pouty face that makes me want to die but he is such a faker. It’s literally like “WAAAAAAAAAA….(I hand him my cell phone) …WAAAAAAAA- heh heh.” Also he’s extremely whiny lately. He’ll giggle at something I do and then immediately whine like he wants me to know he didn’t really mean to laugh. I can’t figure it out.