Today, Gavin had his first, full fledged, no holds barred, tantrum. The interesting part is that is wasn't about anything. At least anything that seemed important. He woke up very early today and announced that he had to go potty. No big deal. Doug got up and took him to the bathroom and tucked him back into his bed.

About 20 minutes later, Gavin started asking if Daddy was out of the shower yet. During the week, when Doug turns off the water for the shower, this signals to Gavin that he can get up. The monitor that we use for Gavin works as a 2 way radio so I grab the monitor and push the button to talk. I explain to him that Daddy is still sleeping and that he can get up when the light turns green. The short explanation (maybe I'll post about it another day) is that we bought Gavin a clock that is set to turn to green at 7:05 am indicating that it is time to get up. Gavin insists that he wants to get up when Doug is done in the shower. I explain to him that Daddy isn't going to work today so he can get up when the light turns green. Despite my repeating this to Gavin at least 3 times, he states that he is getting up when Daddy gets out of the shower. Whatever.

Then, again through the monitor, Gavin asks me, "Is Daddy out of the shower now?"

I say one last time that daddy is not in the shower and the light will be turning green in just a few minutes. Apparently this was just too much for Gavin's little adorable head to comprehend because thus began the screaming, "IIIII DON'T WANT TO WAIT UNTIL THE LIGHT TURNS GREEEEN!" He starts running around in his room (we have a very old house with very thin walls) screaming this. It is so loud that I have turned off the monitor so that hopefully Gavin's outburst doesn't wake up Joey. I wasn't fast enough. I can hear Joey chattering away in his room now. Seeing as how I didn't see things settling down soon, I decided to get up and go to the bathroom and face this lovely day.

While I am in the bathroom, Gavin is still screaming that he doesn't want to wait until the light turns green. After finishing up in the bathroom I head into his room. He is sitting on his bed and he clearly thinks that I am going to rescue him from the agonizing 5 minute wait for the light to turn green. I'm not. I sit on his bed and tell him that I am going to wait with him. You would have thought that I just told him that I was going to dump a bucket of ice water on his head.

He started screaming again, climbed out of bed and started running around the room. This time I could see the frustration in his eyes. He was searching for things to throw. He found a unsuspecting pile of laundry and began pitching it around the room still screaming that he didn't want to wait for the light to turn green. He ran out of breath, paused for all of 4 seconds, and began again. I just laid on his bed watching. Part of me didn't believe this was all happening, the other part of me was slightly entertained by his extreme and unusual behavior.

As he is rolling around on the floor, kicking the floor, still screaming, and taking quick breaths in between it all, the light on his clock has turned green. I wait for him to notice. After another minute or two, he must have glanced at the clock because it all stopped. I think he was waiting for me to tell him that the light was green and he could go downstairs. But, I decided to wait and see what he would do. Just then, Doug walks in and announces that the light was green. Gavin stood up and started toward his bedroom door. I insisted that he come back and clean up all of the clothes he had thrown all over the room. He did. Then Doug wanted Gavin to talk to him before we all went down for breakfast. The screaming began again. I gave up, went to get Joey from his room, who was still just chattering away in his crib, and went down to get some coffee and cereal.

Gavin decided to stay in his room for another 15 minutes instead of talk to Doug. He stayed up there quietly until he finally said, "I'm ready to listen."

I wasn't prepared to have to earn Mother's Day. I wonder if that is why Mother's Day is on a Sunday. From here on out, I am going to call Saturday before Mother's Day, "The Fertilizer Day" since you have to deal with the $hit to get the most beautiful flowers. I hope that your Fertilizer Day is not to smelly. For all of the women who have aching hearts and empty arms, my thoughts and prayers are with you today, on Fertilizer Day. May you not have to endure too many more fertilizer days before your flowers bloom.