Tantrums From Hell

It's been pretty quiet on the tantrum front recently, so we've been having it pretty good. I guess Abang was due for a tantrum and we got it today. Two, in fact.

The first was at, of all places, 1 Utama. My parents, Abang, Adik and I went slightly early just to walk about for a bit before Abang's Gymbobs class at Tumble Tots. At this point he was already overtired, having had a pretty restless night last night and hasn't been getting enough Daddy-time as Daddy's been pretty busy lately. I also realised later that he was hungry and thirsty. So put all these factors into the mixing bowl and you have a pretty lethal combination just waiting to explode.

We headed to the food court to get some ice cream for the boys to share. Of course Abang held it, as Adik is way too young to know what to do with an ice cream cone. (He'd probably mash it on the floor, crush it with his shoes and then get all upset when he's not allowed to eat it.)

As with other children who rev up as they get more tired, Abang was prancing around with his ice cream. In the blink of an eye, the entire dollop of ice cream went flying across the food court and landed on the floor. Part of it landed on my trousers, but that was the least of my problems then.

Tears welled up in his eyes and the scream-fest started. We tried to placate him by saying it's ok, we can get another one but that just made it worse. As I always say, it's the ego that's bruised more than anything else. He was totally embarrassed about the whole incident. Then, the very nice ice cream auntie came over and asked for the cone back, in order to make him another one. (She's probably thinking more like, "Whoa, Nellie! Quit that screaming!")

And of course that made it even worse!

"Stop trying to calm me down! I'm tired of all o'you trying to calm me down!"

Scream, scream, scream. Major flailing of arms and stomping of feet, complete with screams of "DOH-WAAAAAAN! DOH-WAAAAAAN!"

So Mummy swooped into action and had to sling him over my shoulder and remove him from the scene. Regular carrying on the hip would not have worked as he was just flailing about too much. It took a rather long walk before the storm calmed. I think the stares he got from other shoppers got to him (I just ignored them) and he kept saying, "Tak nak dukung, tak nak dukung!" So then he walked about holding my hand still crying until he stopped.

It was so bizarre how he stopped crying. He was obviously ready to stop, but just carried on in small bouts just because he could, or his ego said he should. Then suddenly he stopped.

It went something like this: Cry, cry, whine, whine ... Ooo! Can I have that Winnie the Pooh?

He saw some Pooh stamp-redemption type thingy at Guardian Pharmacy and wanted it. So I seized the moment! Not that I got it for him, but I managed to get him into the shop to look for some vitamins.

"Let's see how many stamps we can get with our vitamins," I told him. We didn't get enough to get it, of course, but I showed him the card with the stamps and explained how many more stamps we'd need to get it. Then I realised he must be hungry and thirsty so we grabbed a quick bite.

That was my first experience of The Mall Tantrums. I'm guessing it won't be my last.

Oh wait, did I mention two tantrums today? The second one was at home. Fell asleep in the car on the way home blah blah blah woke up when we arrived blah blah blah cranky from the nap cut short, screaming, crying blah blah blah more screaming, more crying blah blah blah.

At this point I'm immune.