My 2 year old just had an epic meltdown.

You know the kind: laying on the ground, thrashing, kicking, shrieking, red faced, completely-lost-it kind of tantrum.

What set her off? Well, immediately leading up to said tantrum, she was pouring milk into her training potty, and letting her brother splash in it. So, Daddy took the potty away to clean it, and BAM! Tantrum City. This tantrum lasted about an hour.

Lord, in Heaven, help me.

Tantruming (spell check tells me this word doesn’t exist) over not being able to pour milk in a toilet seems reasonable, right? Nope. But if we pull back and expand our viewfinder a bit, we can piece it together.

Firstly, she’s two. Two year olds are notorious for being emotional, unpredictable, adorable balls of frustration. I honestly think this age gets a bad rep – it’s an age of incredible brain growth. Two year olds are learning language, social skills, expectations, how to potty, consequences, and feelings. ALL THE FEELINGS. (And there are a lot of them. Click here to see an A-Z list to use with kids.)

Imagine having crazy, uncontrollable mood swings all the time, and not only can no one understand what you’re saying, but they keep taking things away from you. That would tick you off, right? That, in a nutshell, is the two year old experience.

Secondly, she is coping with a huge life transition. We just moved her from her home in Texas to a new home in Nebraska. Texas was all she knew until one day, we put her in a car and drove 3 states away. For several weeks, she would climb into the car and ask, “Go back to big house, now?”

It takes a lot of time and repetition to help a two year old adjust to this kind of change. Their beautiful toddler brains are working overtime to understand the change to their environment. She asks lots of questions about the move. She’s more tearful. She wants to call her grandma every day. Even though we’ve been here for almost 4 months, she’s still figuring it out.

Thirdly, she is a two year old in a pandemic. Pandemics are harsh and stressful and awful, and most of us adults are struggling with it, too. Even if we don’t talk to our littlest kids about what’s going on, they pick up on our emotions through our body language and tone of voice. And if you’re anything like me, you’re sad and stressed more than usual right now. Little kids can sense that.

The pandemic also took away many of the activities she once enjoyed. She loves libraries and playgrounds and Mother’s Day Out. She loved play dates with friends. Now she’s stuck inside with the same 4 people, and her highlight of the week is when I let her ride in the car with the windows down.

After thinking about her experience from a broader view, we see that there are lots of reasons that contributed to tonight’s epic meltdown. Her two year old body was tired, and her two year old brain was overstimulated and overworked. Her tantrum was communicating to me that she needed help feeling safe and calm, and she didn’t know how to get there by herself.

So, I got her some ice cold water, a pickle (her favorite), turned on her “fishes” and wrapped her in my arms. She fought me and screamed still, but I held on and whispered songs she liked until she calmed down enough to drink some water. (Ice water works wonders for grounding a kid!)

Aaaaand an HOUR LATER, she fell asleep. :: weeps softly ::

Now it’s Mommy’s turn to collapse into bed.