...And then he was 2!

Joel's second birthday was spent with some friends of mine. We went out to eat at BJ's and I made him an Elmo cake and we had Elmo party hats. It was a lot of fun. When we started school that August Joel was in the Younger 2's class. He had a new teacher that year, Mrs. Wickman. During this school year I started to notice he got in trouble a lot for hitting. I didn't know what was going on. Everyone I had talked to about him had told me he was just going through the terrible twos. 'He'll grow out of it' they all said. I wasn't so sure I would survive though. There were days when I just wanted to scream. All the way down the hall I would hear 'Joel Laird!' He was hitting. He was throwing toys. He wasn't listening to his teacher. What could I do to help? Then one day his teacher came to me asking me if I was being abused by my husband. This made me laugh and offended me all at the same time. Anyone who has met my husband knows how ridiculous this was. Do you really think I would put up with that?? Of course I wouldn't! When Josh and I first got married we put in place several rules for arguing. We were to never call each other names, put our hands on one another (except for holding hands...it helps control the anger) and we would always resolve it before bed time.

His teacher and I resolved to trying putting socks on Joel's hands for when he started hitting. He didn't like this so I thought well maybe this will work. It did...for a week. Then it stopped working. He didn't seem to care about being in time out, being punished, or consequences of his actions. If I knew then what I know now...I would have called for help.

My way of dealing with his behaviors? Drinking. I never was a drinker until Joel got to be two years old. I also started hoarding things. I would hold on to things and couldn't let them go. I had a small two bedroom apartment. In it we had our furniture, our clothes, and all my STUFF. It would climb up the walls. We ended up going out and buying shelves to try to get a handle of all my stuff. The thought up throwing it out, selling it, donating it drove me to the point of hysteria. What if I need it someday? My solution: get a bigger apartment. And that's what we did.