August 22

Why don't baby books have a place for "Baby's First Tantrum"?

Because today was definitely Caleb's first official tantrum.

Don't get me wrong; the kid has fussed and whined before, and even thrown a good fit here or there. But I have never before experienced anything of this magnitude over something so silly. The tantrum was so long, I had time to get my camera and take some pretty sweet shots.

We were eating dinner, like normal, except that we were eating an hour earlier. Caleb took a long, late nap this morning, so the afternoon nap didn't happen. We decided to roll with it, and put him to bed an hour early. That meant at dinnertime, he was tired and fussy.

3 bites into the meal, he decided he wanted my glass of milk. No other milk would do, even an identical cup of his own milk. He wanted MY glass. Fussing ensued. Finally we got him settled down, but then he decided he wanted to go outside.

How do I know this? He started crying and signing "more" and pointing toward the patio door. He also kept saying "ah-shy". (Yep. My kid says "outside" now.) We calmly explained to him that it wasn't time to go outside; it was time to eat.

Did I really expect that to work?

After about 10 minutes of him crying and signing "more" and saying "ah-shy" and explaining and attempts to distract him, the tantrum finally ended when I began singing my famous green bean song. (It's a jazzy ditty, with lyrics that include, "Green beans, green beans; Mommy loves green beans...")

And then, all was well with the world.