In The Words of Inspector Gadget, "Wowsers"

Saturday evening, I tweeted the following:

Sunday evening brought this gem:

I don't even know how to describe what we've gone through with Jamie this past weekend.  He has displayed behavior the likes of which I have never witnessed in any child with which I've come into contact.  This is not my first rodeo when it comes to the Terrible Twos and this weekend was so awful that if I start to seriously contemplate how bad age three is going to be, I might get PTSD - Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Jamie spent the weekend screaming.  When he wasn't screaming, he was squealing.  When he wasn't squealing, he was sobbing.  When he wasn't sobbing he was whining.  When he wasn't doing any of those things he was asleep - which was hard won to begin with.

He refused to communicate with us at all.  If we didn't have ESP, we might as well bend over and grab our ankles.  Seeing as we don't have the ability to read minds, we were staring at our ankles a lot.  We couldn't figure out what he wanted to do, what he wanted to eat, where he wanted to go - nothing.  We tried taking the kids out a couple of times and we had to run for the hills both times because Jamie was having epic public meltdowns.

Poor Liam got the short end of the parental stick all weekend long.  Scot and I were so frazzled at trying to survive what was happening with Jamie that Liam just had to sort of fit himself into the cracks.  This is one of the many reasons I felt like a failure as a parent.  Not only couldn't I find a way to calm Jamie down and help him through whatever was upsetting him, I had to ignore Liam in the process.

I have theories about Jamie's issues: teething, a cold, new neurologic patterns as speech slowly emerges, and hunger (due to his mouth hurting from teething and not eating as a result).  When I finally figured out that last item, I made him some easy to eat Kraft Mac n Cheese and the kid stuffed at least a half a pot of the stuff down his gaping maw.  

I hope this weekend was just some kind of perfect storm because I don't know if I can do that again and again and again for weeks or months.  So far, today has been better.  He's been in a better mood and he's taking a l-o-n-g nap.  Here's hoping...