The Beach & Temper Tantrums

My mother-in-love and father-in-love offered us their beach condo for a week. We had some great family time. Hear are SOME of the great pictures we have of Madelyn.

Here she is at the pier.

Here she is at Gulf World.

Here she is lounging around the condo.

And here she is at the beach with Mommy & Daddy!

We will treasure these pictures for years to come.

Okay, so now for the not-so-fun part of our trip. We had some temper tantrums. In fact, we had a lot of them. Ladies and Gentlemen, Madelyn has quickly mastered the black-belt level of temper tantrums - at 19 months. I'm not talkin' a little fussy because she can't have a toy she wants or being temper mental before nap time. I'm talkin' screaming at Walmart to the level that someone says to me, "Man, she has some lungs! I heard her 3 aisles over" all because I took a phone call with my cell phone and wouldn't let her take the phone from me. I'm talkin' hitting and kicking me during diaper change to the point that I have to put her in her crib mid-change because she just kicked me in the jaw and I have to recover from the pain before I can continue the diaper change. I'm talkin' screaming for 30 minutes straight (red-faced, 'I'm being tortured to death' kind of screaming) because - well, we never found out what triggered that temper tantrum. I'm talkin' tantrums that both grandparents have witnessed and said things like, "Bless your heart for having to deal with that" and "She is high-maintenance, that's for sure."

I know that temper tantrums are normal. I know that every parent goes through this. I know that this is my first child and I might very well look back on this and say, "Man, that was easy." But right now I don't feel that way. Right now I feel frustrated, exhausted and scared that I'm doing it all wrong.

Update: Today I went to the library to check out some books on temper tantrums but I couldn't because Madelyn had a temper tantrum in the library and I had to leave before I began. So I came home and bought $35 worth of used books about toddlers and discipline and temper tantrums and stay-at-home moms on Amazon. (I'm all about the run-on sentences today.)