these "Terrible Two's" are terrifying me

Peanut. Sweet Squishable Peanut. The littlest boy in our group of brothers, the sweet one who loves to flirt and hug and cuddle. Who knows and uses his "please" and "thank yous" with out being reminded or asking...

 

Where did he go? 

Who replaced my sweet loveable Peanut with this crazy hyper, demanding, yelling, pushing & hitting, two year old? The two year old who this morning didn't like the cup I had gave him so he poured his juice out all over the floor? The two year old who will walk up to his brothers and whack them in the back of a head with a diecast metal car and WHILE hitting them shouts ''Sorry!" with a smile on his face? This little boy who thinks it's a good time to let go of my hand (or his dad's hand) in the middle of a parking lot and take off running while LAUGHING hysterically.

Now I know you may be thinking ''Shannon, you're not exactly new to this. You knew it was coming." Well, yes, I did. But honestly I didn't think that Peanut could be any worse than Pooks was. 

I was horribly wrong. What I wouldn't give for some cart crawling and clothing hiding.

When I take Peanut to the store {lately} he will still sit in the cart. But every.single.item I pick up he says ''I want it''. So if it's a bag of apples, jar of peanut butter, box of cereal, he can hold it. I don't mind. When it's a package of ground beef, a glass jar of pickles or a carton of eggs, I remind him ''No, you can't have this, it's breakable/yucky...hold this instead.'' He shouts "I WANT IT!!" So I again say, "Well you can help mommy by holding this, you cannot have that". "BUT I WANT IT!!" he shouts in response. And again, he still doesn't get it so he proceeds to violently kick about the cart while screaming/crying/shouting. I've tried ignoring him. I've tried rationally explaining it to him. I've tried giving him something else. I'm not proud to admit it but I've even tried bribing him with something else. Nothing works. This behavior continues while I try to hurriedly finish my grocery shopping. Usually he all the sudden just stops. It may take 45 seconds, it may take 3 minutes but like a flipping a light-switch, he just stops.

Today when he did it, I stopped right there in the aisle. I stopped talking, stopped pushing and just stood there. When Pooks asked me why we stopped I calmly responded ''I can't shop until Connor stops screaming and being mean and sits nicely." Surprisingly this did cut down on the duration of the tantrum but we had to stop 6 times while at the store today. 

That's a trip to the store.

At home, it's a whole 'nother story. He is snatching toys that aren't his, trying to get things off of the counters, and insists that he do everything. He turns on the TV. He lets the dog out. He opens the fridge. He gets to chose his diaper. And if myself, B or one of the other kids happens to let the dog out, well be prepared for the insanity. It's a whirlwind of screaming, followed by him either actually hitting his brothers or just batting his hands at us.

Time-outs generally don't work because he screams so loudly while in timeout that he upsets Sweetcheeks and she starts crying. Then I have him in timeout screaming, her crying, Bubba ''helping'' me try to calm her down and Pooks yelling to tell me that Peanut is yelling too loud. Swatting his bottom doesn't work, he just hits back. Ignoring him doesn't work, he'll just continue hitting/snatching toys until someone intervenes. Sending him to his room is a disaster because he either a)stands at the doorway screaming which leads to the above scenario or b)starts making his room a mess by pulling everything off of his bed, throwing diapers around, etc. Not that I can't clean it up afterward (i do) but I'm afraid that he is going to hurt himself.

I am at a total loss.

And I should clarify he isn't bad every.single.second of the day. I'd say he's well behaved 65% of the time and awful about 35% of it. And it wouldn't be so horrible if his bad behavior wasn't SO bad. But, sadly, it is. *MOST* of the time when he acts out, I know it's because he's tired. The problem is that he has been waking at 6:30am and it turns out, that is too early for him to be nice. I have put up darkening shades in his room, I have a white noise machine going, I've turned down the AC at night so he's a bit cooler but nothing works, he still wakes up early. I tried letting him lay in my bed but he doesn't go back to sleep. He tosses and turns and talks to loud and is 'hungry' or wants to watch TV, or wants a toy, etc. And I know it's not us waking him because usually he wakes before B. It isn't his sister because lately {due to his screaming and protesting at bedtime} she's been sleeping most of the night in our room. {Typically I lay her in her crib around 9:30pm after he's asleep and then end up coming and bringing her to our room when he starts shouting at 6am}.

So again I ask What do I do? About the tantrums, the acting out, the waking early. Any advice on any of it. Or all of it.

I just want my sweet boy back again. When he is nice, he is really really nice. He loves giving kisses, helping his Sissy, cuddling up in my lap, and giving great big hugs. It's just that those moments have come so few and far between now.