Tempering

Among other imaginative games -- turning corn chips into spaceships and riding daddy's back like a rhinoceros through the jungle -- Tucker likes to use blocks to build hospitals for his people.  He makes a bed for the patient, with room for the nurse to wheel the chair in... and then, in an instant, the entire building collapses with one swift blow, an impulsive result of miscommunication or an abrupt assertion of independence.

We try to regard tantrums as a normal and generally transient feature of toddlerhood, but even occasional aggression feels frustrating and frightening for all of us.  By pushing the blocks he pushes the envelope, testing boundaries and parental patience.  In the domestic realm myth dictates that we, as adults, are endowed with a disproportionate measure of power, but in the midst of strong-willed toddler theatrics it can be difficult to be convinced.
When his tears seem filled with blame, so accusatory he might as well throw them at us too, we try to remember that he's just a little boy learning to handle big feelings.  And it's a big job to help him express them respectfully.

JEB