Time-out

Heaven is now two years and nine months old. His communication skills are said to be advanced for his age. He speaks in complete sentences and with the right tenses.

"Tay, may itatanong ako sa iyo." or "I have an idea." or "Lola, pinagalitan ako ni Tatay." or "Nag-wo-work si Nanay."

Sometimes, I forget that he is only two. That when he throws a fit I catch myself chastising him as if he is already of age.

Terrible two. Yep. We've heard about this dreaded stage a lot from friends and relatives.

Heaven's terrible two tantrums can get, well, really terrible. He hits. He kicks. He grunts. He orders me to stay away from him. "Doon ka sa door." "Outside ka!" Thankfully, he hasn't gone public and made a scene---wailing, arms flailing.

Today, we had a small fight about what Blue's Clues episode he would watch. He balled his fist and threatened me with a 1-2-3. He tried to kick my in my shin. He growled at me. He threw a book at me. And of course he cried.

I usually have two solutions for situations like this. Diversion or time-out. But it's difficult to do diversionary tactics when Heaven is already crying.

So I let him cry and called for a time-out. Our time-out is Heaven being left on his own and me keeping a safe distance away from him. This time-out lasted 10 minutes. He cried for real the first few minutes. But the next part was what I call the drama howl. Just pure waaaahhhh without the painful emotion.

I wanted to reason out with him but I knew that wouldn't work. So I just let him cry. Then like the prodigal son he was, he ran to me still crying and said: "Sorry Tatay!" He cried his heart out again. For real. And in between his sniffs and snuffles, I told him there was no need to get angry at Tatay had he just waited for Tatay to find the Blue's Clues episode he wanted to watch.

We ended up watching Bob the Builder instead. Shall I expect him to behave like an obedient angel the next time? Nope. Despite his winsome vocabulary, Heaven is still two. He is stilled ruled by emotions, not by logic yet. But come to think of it, a lot of us have not yet outgrown our own terrible two's.