Toddler Terrorist

Don't be fooled-he's hardcore....

So, just a little follow up on last week- about two minutes after I wrote that sweet little post about sweet little Luke, he turned two and morphed into Devil Child. Quickly it soon became clear that he'd got the 'Terrible Twos' memo, and decided to give it his all. For example, on a whim, he's taken to shouting loudly just for the sake of it- not necessarily in anger or frustration- just out of the blue, and because he knows that the entire room will turn to look at him. Then he just smiles angelically, and goes back to whatever he was doing.

Similarly, his new, and wonderfully refreshing way of getting my undivided attention, is to scream, (and I mean SCREAM), 'Maaaaammmmmmy' right in my face. I'll grudgingly admit that I may share some fault  because I don't always 'hear' first time around. (I mean please- I know I'm wheeling out the old 'I've got 5 kids' card here, but if I 'heard', never mind reacted to, every single 'mammy' uttered in a day, I wouldn't get a minute's peace, and they're too few and bloody far between as it is).

So yes, I could be on the phone, in conversation, reading an email, nosying on Facebook, nosying on Twitter, engaged with another child, or even on the loo, FFS, but none of this matters to  Luke in the slightest. He goes straight from zero to hero, ramping it up right away, thus propelling himself straight onto my radar. So on assessment, yes, I suppose it's really working out for him. For me though, not so much.

Things came to a headmelting climax at Mass last Sunday. Quick back story-we go to the 930am Mass- partly habit, partly because there's a 'kids's club', but regardless, it's an early start. We're up and at it, (with or without hangovers), by 8am, and getting the kids up, washed, fed and watered  is no picnic, but by this stage- and I don't want to overstate here- we're pros. The older four are great in the church itself, no worries there, but Luke has been a bit of an unknown quantity of late-he could really go either way, and this week he most definitely went the wrong way.
You see, every Sunday for months, sooner or later, one of us have had to do the walk of shame down the church with a squirming, squealing toddler, and on those extra special days, when he's really kicked off, we end up outside the church completely. But, as this hadn't happened for about, oh, 3 or 4 weeks, we'd got ahead of ourselves, and moved from tentatively patting each other on the back, to openly congratulating one another for coming out the other side.
 'Woohoo! Well, we stuck at it and now we've turned a corner.' (Said expansively.)
'He didn't break us.'
'You're the best!'
'No, you're the best.'
'No, you are.'
'No, you.'
You get the picture.  Thus, it was with a certain complacency, and a new, (utterly misplaced), confidence, that we arrived for Mass last week, so when Luke the Terrible rolled in, he caught us completely off guard.  Before it even started, he had begun to limber up and none of the usual charms were working (Toast? Check. Dummy? Check. Books? Check. Quiet soft toy? Check). The noise and stress levels climbed steadily, and it all went down hill from there really. Fast forward ten minutes to me, almost in tears outside the church, unable to even LOOK at him I was so cross. A final, last ditch attempt, to sneak quietly in the back, was abandoned when he gave me the proverbial one fingered salute, by going rigid and squealing at the top of his lungs as soon as I opened the door. At that point, I threw in the towel and it was bowed and broken, that I dragged him to the car and drove home. (Leaving everyone else high and dry for a lift but thankfully it was a fine,(if chilly), day for a good stretch of the legs). As for our resident mini terrorist, if I've learned anything, it's never trust a toddler. Yes, he may have won the battle, but I'm playing the long game and some day victory WILL be mine!