Anatomy of a Tantrum
Written By Catherine Newman
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When I tell her that I'd like to help but can't — I trace her palm and fingers with my finger to show her how seamlessly put together she is — Birdy throws herself on the mattress and screams. The technical term for what's happening to her at this moment is "the last straw." She stands up, still screaming, and, tears rivuleting down her sweet face and her mouth opened into that red cave of yelling, she looks a little like a Beatles fan. You know, in footie pajamas. "Fingahs oooffff!" She's shrieking and tugging on her hands, trying to remove her fingers like they're gloves. (This scene feels oddly familiar. Was it in that 10th-grade film they showed us about LSD?) She bites into the comforter, tears at a sleeve with her teeth. I say, irrelevantly, "Would you like to look at A Fairy Went A-Marketing?" and Birdy stomps away. Such a bald-faced distraction will not be dignified with a response.
The thing about tantrums is that sometimes there is not only no way to help but also — and this is the kicker — no point. This is to be distinguished from the kind of tantrum that results from a disciplinary or safety intervention. If Birdy is about to plunge her hand into a Crock-Pot full of lentils, or if she's jabbing a thermometer into her ear or darting out into the road or hitting Ben over the head with a xylophone, and I stop her and/or speak sharply to her, well, the episode that follows always feels worthwhile in some way. Sure, the kicking and screaming are inconvenient, and you may have to stand in the middle of the sidewalk shrugging and smiling at the flinty passersby while your child flails a hole into the pavement with her snow boots. But righteousness is a raft you can cling to: An Important Lesson has been taught and learned.
In a case like the Dreaded Attached Fingers, however, there is no glint of a silver lining. Tiredness has simply forgone its usual peaceful route (close eyes, fall asleep) and has instead taken a terrible, winding detour through paroxysms of fury and frustration (kick feet, bang head against crib bars). And the lesson "fingers stay on" just isn't that satisfying a destination.
Meanwhile, back in bed, things have escalated. I'm still trying to read Laura Ingalls Wilder to Ben. I'm reading loudly, of course, so Ben can hear me over the handwringing din of his sister. And it's all a little surreal. Because here, on the one hand, are Laura and Carrie in a different century, struggling through a homicidal blizzard to get home to their worried parents — these courageous, uncomplaining little girls in their woolen tights and petticoats — and there, over on the edge of the bed, is this gigantic baby flinging herself around and pulling her own hair because her fingers are attached to her hand. Birdy's struggle is a real one, of course, and her dear face is tragic and red and drenched. But when Ben makes eye contact with me, I raise my eyebrows and he giggles. Then Birdy staggers over with a pillow like some murderous yeti, presses it down over our heads, and under the pillow Ben and I are laughing and laughing: Things are so out of hand. When we come up for air, Birdy looks so sad and lost that I say, "Oh, sweetheart," and, against her will, take her into my arms.
I rock this person — this half baby, half child — and sing to her. Birdy is struggling still and crying hard, but I try to remember that sometimes, if I'm sad or despairing, my husband might rub my back and speak soothing words to me, and even though he might not see any change on the outside — I might appear to be wholly and despairingly unaffected by his care — inside I am comforted. And even as I'm thinking this, Birdy's body softens in my arms and her screaming morphs into gasping, raggedy breaths with only a little bit of intermittent crying when she remembers her Great Woe and Sadness.
After the song ends, she sits up and asks, "Could I have tissue bease?" so politely that tears spring to my eyes. And when I hand it to her, she blots at her eyes and blows her nose, smiles at me, and says, "Sink you, Mama."
The thought that comes into my head is a cliché: It's like a storm passing. Birdy smiles, and even though the moon is peeking in through the tops of the trees, the bedroom is flooded with sunlight. And Birdy herself has the age-old impulse, the same thing I'm doing here, to make sense of her experience by turning it into a story. "I was," she tells us, her shoulders still heaving a little bit, "so, so sad." And Ben and I say, at the exact same time, "We know."
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