Communication Breakdown

So, you know how people talk about the terrible two's? Well, consider this a public service when I tell you that's a bunch of crap. The terrible TWO's is a misnomer. Max is all of 1 year and a couple weeks and folks, we have hit the terrible two's. I noticed his behaviour changing over the last couple of days but he has been sick so I attributed his whining and crying to that and didn't pay too much attention until yesterday. Yesterday. Yesterday was a day that I had talked about before we got him and had prepared myself for, just not quite this soon. Here's what happened.

We went to the grocery store yesterday and yes, we went fairly close to nap time but still with a reasonable amount of time to get the job done before sleepy time. Anyway, he was doing fine at the start but about 10 minutes into it, he started to get fussy. Nothing major, just squirming in the cart and some random whining. I had given him a bottle of soda to play with (before you call child services and tell them I give my kid soda, it was UNOPENED)and he seemed to be fine with this. Well, I had turned to get a can of beans off the shelf and out of the corner of my eye I see my bottle of Diet A&W go flying down the aisle. I ran to get it and instead of giving it back for me to go fetch again, I put it in the cart. This did not please him. He started to squirm a lot more and he was getting louder in his fussing. I figured that hauling my ass through this place as fast as possible was a really good idea so I picked up the pace. Suddenly he busted out of the cart seat belt. That's not good. I buckled him back in and within 3 seconds, mini Houdini was out again and this time, he had worked both legs into one side of the cart leg opening and was trying to slide to freedom. At this point I knew I was screwed so I got him back in and tried to hold him in place while I RAN through the aisles throwing shit in my cart. What did I buy? Who the hell knows. I grabbed a box of mac n cheese and threw it in, which he promptly reached back and picked up. This magic box suddenly shut him up so I slowed down and kept shopping until I looked over to see his lips covered in the blue cardboard that he was chewing off. I grabbed the box, threw it back in the cart and wiped the blue from his lips. That's when it happened.

He looked at me and all of a sudden his bottom lip came out, his eyes got all squinty and his face began to turn beet red. He made no sound. NO SOUND. That is the harbinger of disaster. No sound means only one thing. He is breathing in to get as much air so he can scream as loud as humanly possible. I braced for impact and he did not disappoint. He let loose as loud as I have ever heard him, all because I took the box away from him. I was running down the aisle trying to finish and he was at Defcon 5 so I said "EFF THIS" and ran to the front to ABORT MISSION. Of course, all the lines were long so I had to wait because we were seriously out of everything and finally had to pick him up because he was breaking out of his cart prison again so I'm standing there, holding a screaming toddler who now is trying to pull down the gum rack and I hear the guy in front of me say he needs to make a call to his dad about his total. ARE YOU SEROUS, DUDE? We live near a major university and all the kids shop at my grocery store with their parent's credit card and this kid needs to get permission to buy his freaking Powerade RIGHT NOW?? I've managed to throw all my crap on the belt by now and the guy finally leaves and I'm on. I go to the end and start bagging my own stuff. I shoved everything I could into the bags while trying to prevent him from banging on the credit card machine which he was intent on doing. He is VERY LOUD right now and every one is staring at us, or at least I feel like they are. He isn't crying as much but every time I deny him, he screams. I get all my stuff bagged and get the hell out of there. I walk outside and what's happening?? IT'S RAINING. Of course it is.

We run through the rain, me holding him and trying to push a big cart with one hand which is not easy to do and what is he doing?? LAUGHING HIS BRAINS OUT. This is so fun for him. YIPPEE! Fantastic. I spent the ride home explaining how much I disliked his behaviour, all of which I'm sure sounded like the teacher from the Peanuts to him and as soon as we got him, he was in the crib. Before he could break into his crying routine again, I told him I didn't want to hear a peep out of him and I think he knew he had reached my limit because he made not a sound for over an hour. So, my point of this is, why am I getting the terrible two's at age one? Huh? Why? I should have at least 6 more months of bliss, right? No. He's hit it and now I'm on brat patrol. It's on kid, BRING IT.