The Angry Bear

Today my sweet lovable son was somehow replaced by and angry growling bear. When William has a tantrum he roars, really. First, this morning at the Early Years Centre, William took a toy into circle, which is frowned upon. Rather than sit with his toy boat quietly and covertly, he drove it through the center of the circle, so that all the behaving children could see what he was getting away with. When I took the boat and asked him to sit (unreasonable, I know) he roared and growled, bellowing "I want my boat." I took him aside, calmed him down, but as soon as he got back to the circle, he roared and growled again until we had to go home. On the way his growl switched from "I want my boat" to "I want sit in circle."

Later on, when it was time to change William's diaper, he again did his ferocious bear routine and refused to go. When I finally got his diaper off, I asked him if he would like to pee on the potty. "No!" he screamed, and peed on the floor.

I hoped that he would be in a better mood after his nap. Reasoning that I would have more chance of sanity if we got out of the house, I put both the kids in the stroller and walked to the library. We had to leave before we'd checked out anything because William was throwing books.

After dinner, I was going to give Jadzia a bath because she put food in her hair. I asked William if he wanted to have a bath too and he did. I had to cut the bath short, though, because my son kept splashing water all over the side of the tub, even when I told him repeatedly to stop.

They say that when children misbehave, they're actually communicating. I'm guessing that William's bear routine stems from a combination of his sister getting attention (she's been sick the last two days) and icky rainy weather. I can't do much about either of those things so I'll just have to hope my growling bear, turns back into a teddy bear tommorrow.