Tantrums

Terrible two's, front and center!

I've been directed toward the Happiest Toddler on the Block book to deal with tantrums and toddler behavior so I've been reading that and it is helping me understand how to approach him better.  Lately he has been tantruming on average 5-10 times a day and Jared and I are nearing the end of our patience.  Or maybe we crossed that border a few days ago...but in any case, I need to get this under control because he spends a good 75% of the day in tears, crying, or whining.  I just laugh when people ask what his triggers are because this week off the top of my head it was carrying him into our bedroom (trigger), giving him a sandwich (trigger), taking his nutrigrain bar out of the wrapper (trigger), and many more mundane, harmless actions.  These days I can look at him wrong and he will flip out.  We're talking floor crumpling, body flailing, rolling around on the floor screaming, snot flying everywhere, sobbing for almost an hour until we gag type of tantrums.  Many many times a day.  Time to take swift action!  At least while reading this I am enlightened but also feeling slightly ahead of the game because we emphasize sign language in our house, which was suggested as a technique in the book.  And the reason behind trying to teach him signs, from my perspective, was to help prevent toddler frustration with communication as well as the obvious language-building benefits.  We just finished the Baby Signing Time class which was more for my benefit than Elliott's but I think we both learned a good amount in a short time.