Bulging gums

That's what Elias has: bulging gums. His two side teeth (bottom eye teeth) are coming through.

I was visiting the other night with a new mom of a two week old. I told her that it gets better. It's true; it does. And then it gets bad again. I didn't tell her that. No one told us. Eighteen months has been an awakening to me.

I know it's not Elias' fault. This is part of being a toddler, of having so many emotions and fears and excitements that one just can't get it together.

A friend of mine says that she has been teaching her toddler to take deep breaths to calm down, and that many times it works. So I tried that today. Deep in the middle of an all out FIT, I asked Elias to take some deep breaths to calm down. He looked at me like I was insane, tried to mimic me taking a breath, and then went back to screaming.

It's strange being cooped up with this crazy person. Jeremy and I are pretty cool-headed. A service worker once told us that we had the quietest home he'd ever been to, and others, upon visiting our church's small group, said that they had never been to such a quiet group. We like quiet. We like peace. We do not understand temper tantrums, of the adult or child sort. Like, literally. I don't understand them, and so I (actually, both Jeremy and I) are at sort of a loss at how to deal with them. Sometimes we discipline him, sometimes we distract him, sometimes we try to calm him down, sometimes we ignore him.

I bet that if you were to come to my house at any point during the day, I'd consistently have this sort of surprised, shell-shocked look on my face.

Any ideas?

(I made it to three p.m. today before making my chai. Of course, three p.m. also found me with my hand deep inside a chip bag. You win some, you lose some.)