Toddler Shock

I have determined that there is a condition among parents that has been previously undiagnosed among the medical community. Since I'm not a doctor and have not a lick of medical training I'm going to call it PTTSD or Post Traumatic Toddler Stress Disorder, or in layman's terms Toddler Shock. Like Shell Shock or as it's later referred to PTSD it's when a parent (or in some cases the caregiver) lives in a war like conditions with a toddler. Only your war zone is now the battle of wills and the opponent, less than 3 foot tall.

Some of the symptoms:

• A nervous twitch when you see handprint waist high on the wall.
• An intense adversion to high pitched whining noises.
• A lack of sleep.
• Headaches, usually caused by stress or tension.

Case Study:
Today Subject 2 (Evan) requested an apple. After getting the normal "magic words" out of him. I decided to pick the apple off of the kitchen counter top (like I have done 1,000 times before) and hand it to him. At which point he descended into a mood swing that has not been equaled by anyone who is not a hormonal teenager. After the screaming and the foot stomping ended he declared that he wanted to "get it myself!" So I placed that apple on the edge of the counter top where he would have to stretch up and reach it. WRONG CHOICE as I was soon informed in the millisecond that he took to decide that this compromise was unacceptable to him. More screaming and crying continued along with the addition of the foot stomp. At this point I was about to put the apple back in the bowl out of the reach of the toddler and leave it there, when he screamed "I do it MYSELF!" and then proceeded to stomp into the dining room, pull a chair into the kitchen, climb the chair and fetch the apple out of the bowl. And thus swinging the moody temper tantrum pendulum back to a more normal orbit by taking the apple and eating it. Only half of it mind you the rest was left on the floor for Mommy to find.