u/TogetherPlantyAndMe

She’ll be 3 years old at the end of summer (33 months). Diagnosed with a speech delay at 15 months and we’ve made leaps and bounds in speech therapy since then.

“Yo-ya” is yogurt. “Ye-yo” is yellow. Most other words are pretty understandable like that, but I can’t figure out what she’s asking for. Sometimes she’ll use the “y,” sound to say something that starts with a W or an L. Doesn’t help that she mostly uses it while she’s mad. It’s not “water,” “hug,” “alone,” any song I know how to sing, or anything else that seems helpful during a tantrum.

Thanks for any help. Stay strong out there, toddler parents.

*Everybody wanna have a best friend, but your best friend gotta be you (you)!*

Also it plays *Breakfast at Tiffany’s* an inexplicable amount of times per day. But all in all. I like it. I like having background music and it’s obviously less repetitive than my kid’s Moana card. Good mix of kids stuff and everyone music. I’ve learned some science facts from songs about different animals and whatnot.

Good stuff. Glad we have it.

We have a toddler. My husband is in the choir (which ia great) but it means that 100% of mass behavior management is on me. My mother in law and her husband came in to do church with us today. My kid will NOT go inside. She’s screaming, kicking, yelling “I NO WANT CHURCH I NO WANT BENCH.” Yes I KNOW “if it ain’t crying, it’s dying” but newborns crying is one thing, my kid scramming words and kicking me is another. There’s no cry room and there’s not even a Narthex with doors, so I can’t leave other than to go outside. Luckily it’s beautiful out but there’s a bunch of ants eating a dead moth and my kid keeps trying to play with them.

We tried 3 times to go sit down and my kid is hurt kicking me. My husband is over on the side with the choir. My mother in law is just sitting there. She usually plays/ reads with my kid when we do church but my kid needs more than that today and my MIL isn’t fucking HELPING.

The worst part is that my mom is states away. And if she would be here right now, she’d be outside with me. She wouldn’t Leave my side if I needed help (unless I told her to leave me alone lol), but no I have this other mom and she prefers to sit quietly in all things instead of doing something. And so now I’m outside of church and trying to keep my kid away from the ants and I’m typing on my phone and I’m just sad and mad. I don’t even want to tet again it’s so embarrassing to walk in and walk out.

EDIT: Hi all, it’s a couple hour later. Thank you for the love and support. A few things:

1. My daughter is two and a half and yes, this behavior was really unusual for her. I’m gonna re-read How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen and heck, maybe I’ll skim a developmental psych textbook from college if I can find one.

2. I have no idea what I wanted my MIL to do to “help”. She was absolutely trying to give us space to figure it out/ calm down. It was 100% unfair of me to get so angry toward her. But I just latched onto her as the target of my mad in this rant. I think it was particularly because she was sitting at the front of the church, and I kept having to walk alllllllll the way in and allllllll the way back out just to try to sit with her.

3. Yes, we have special Mass toys and books, and yes, I think that’s what got my kid to calm down! I didn’t let her play with her books unless we sat down in the pews.

4. Several people came up to me after Mass and told me not to give up, I was doing great, it’s good to bring them, stories about their own kids, etc. It was so heartwarming. It was almost one of those, “Wow, I’m glad I went through that pain because the aftermath is so beautiful,” situations but honestly no, I do wish I just didn’t have to walk in and out with my kid kicking me so many times.

5. I am a few days from my period, so I have PMS rage, and unfortunately I also had a glass or two of wine too many last night, and so I was parenting a toddler while PMSing and lightly hungover (and annoyed at myself for drinking to the point of a hangover!) I know I raged here, but honestly, I think my therapist would tell me to be proud of how I handled the situation. I stepped away, tried the tools I knew worked, raged on the Internet to people I knew would understand, then tried again. I also called my own mom later in the day.

6. My husband and I are gonna talk about switching mass times because yeah, it’s getting too rough to manage her on my own right now and it’s not fair.

7. We ended up having a really great day. Also there was a party after Mass for our parish’s feast day, so there were donuts and bubbles and a literal mariachi band lmao. My kid and her grandma were soooo happy to hang out and dance together. All in all it worked out.

Thanks for the love everyone. I really do appreciate it.