Angry Owen

In general, Owen is a happy little fellow and like most kids his age, he is very earnest.  But he does have temper tantrums that are not unlike a flash flood:  you are ankle deep in mad toddler before you even realized it was raining.

For a while when Owen got mad he would bite us.  As you can imagine, this did not go over very well—the boy has sharp teeth!  So we of course would get all stern with him and give him a scolding and tell him that under no circumstances should the biting ever occur again.  We only bite food, etc.  Owen listened to our scolding and modified his behavior somewhat, so that now when he gets angry (usually it is because we are telling him “no” to something), he puts his own knuckle in his mouth and makes as if to bite down.

Um, okay.  Knock yourself out there, kid!  Bite away on your own finger and see how that works for you!

The other thing he started doing to Sean when he got angry was to rumple Sean’s beard.  He takes his two hands and uses them as if they were salad forks and Sean’s beard the salad.  Toss!  Rumple!  And the funny thing is that he will do it to me, too, even though – trust me – I do not have a beard.  He attacks my chin with vigor.

We can usually distract him from his anger, both by ignoring it and getting him interested in something else, and it does tend to blow over pretty quickly.  I do admit to having to hide my laughter on occasion because, let’s face it, the wrath of a toddler can be quite funny.

 Owen thinking, hmmm, let's see what she does

when I laugh when she's angry....