Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Beast




So, Maeve is a total fireball. We haven't a clue what sets her off, or how to calm her down. She's a storm waiting to happen. When she was born, we nicknamed her "the Beast" after her Auntie Greta, who apparently was quite the screamer also (so we hear). When Maeve was born she cried and cried and cried. All the time. For no apparent reason. This was a total shock to my system considering Michaela was happy all the time. You could prop her in the corner of a room and she'd be happy all day long! After 2 months or so of constant crying and screaming from Maeve, I got close to the end of my wits. I put her down on a blanket on the floor and left the room to collect myself and BAM!

Silence.

wtf??

You mean, for 2 solid months, all we had to do was leave her alone?? I seriously couldn't believe it. That's when we learned that Maeve doesn't like to be touched unless it's on her terms. She would much rather be left alone to observe and play. She'll come to you if she wants any affection. So things were much better for us for a while. See, Michaela likes to be very hands on, and she just could NOT leave the baby alone. So from about 10 months until about 20 months old, Maeve would just screech and scream every time Michaela tried to touch her. And no matter how many times we asked Michaela to just leave her alone, she couldn't. Finally, Maeve learned how to scream NO, and subsequently learned to hit, which we let her do. The only thing that would teach Michaela to leave Maeve alone was to get a smack once in a while. It worked! :) Now, I'm not the type to just let my kids beat on each other, but Maeve deserved the chance to defend herself against the hands of her sister.

Today, Maeve is more well adjusted overall, but she has acquired this new personality quirk. She gets upset about something and will just start screaming NO, and maybe some phrase to explain her issue (yesterday it was "I stand up"?) And she'll scream for an hour, maybe more. If we try to put her in her room to calm down there literally is no end. I think she just zones out and forgets that she's supposed to be calming down and that she doesn't need to be upset anymore. If we're lucky, we can go and lie down with her or sit with her and somehow snap her out of it. Usually talking to her just makes her scream louder, but once in a while we're able to get her out of her trance and back to the real world.

How can someone this cute be so full of angst at 2 years old already?? 13 is gonna be fun in the Guthrie house. :)






3 comments:

ReserFamily said...

OMG! I think that my youngest Josh is possibly her soul mate! That's pretty much what he does. Last night, he screamed and threw a kicking, screaming, pounding hands on the floor fit b/c we wanted to change his diaper. So...we put him in his crib (good lord, the thought of moving him to a big boy bed is scary) It is okay to keep them in a crib until they are 5 right? He cried and made thesehorrible noises for at least 30 minutes, he was kicking and hitting the walls and rattling his crib...Good Lord!
When would you like them to meet? :)

jessica said...

Well, we should probably start making the plans now, because you know they are both gonna throw huge tantrums if they don't get the wedding of their dreams. We'll just throw them in their cribs and let them fight it out. :)

ReserFamily said...

SO FUNNY!! I think I might have to start saving...forget college...just bail out money