Well, I have now seen the first tantrum. I had heard about and read about them, so I was prepared!
What I wasn't prepared for was the ending.
It was over - wait for it - Legos! That's a huge surprise. Joy has a police car. James does not. He is nuts for cars of all kinds, but police cars, well, that's something special. So when Joy said no, he could not play with her car, he just lost it. We went to sit on the step together when he tried to grab her Legos box and get the car out anyway. He cried on my knee, saying "I want to play with the police car" over and over again (I assume, since it was partly in Chinese and partly in English). I tried to calmly just say no, that's Joy's. At some point, when I thought he was a little more rational, I pointed to his box of Legos and said, for James. He pointed to it and basically said, throw it away, I don't want it. It was so funny!
So, I put it in the closet and said, bye bye. He seemed fine with that. Asked for Joy's car again, raged again, this time trying to hit the couch. I tried to get him to jump on the mini tramp we have in the room, but that seemed to make him madder.
At any rate, after about 20 minutes of this, he asked for his box of Legos out of the closet. I got it down and set it down on the carpet. He told me to shoo, so I left him alone, being busy in the room. He cried a little more, then got out the book that came with the Legos. In a few minutes, he called me to come over (Lai) and told me he wanted to make the fire engine in the book.
So we sat down on the carpet and made the fire engine, with proper modifications, of course. And he was a happy boy again.
Joy was doing a great job of being concerned but not in the middle of it either. When we started making the fire engine, I asked her to get her police car out so that they could play together. That made him just as happy as could be! She didn't let him touch it, but they played together, chasing phantom bad guys through the hallway!
So after being prepared for a "bad temper" and not much "regulation of emotions", I found a little boy who was genuinely mad, expressed it, found a solution, and got over it. Amazing!
Later - Jet Lag and "Mommy, 2 cereal, 2 egg, 2 soup please!"
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