Toddler who hit and Mothers who find it just too much to bear

The other day, at a playgroup, Baby B walked up to a baby in a stroller, pointed and said “Baby!” raised his hand, and whacked the baby on the top of his little head. Naturally, the baby, about 8 months old, started crying. Just as naturally, the mother of this baby, who is a friend, thank heaven, was able to quickly soothe her the little one. I hope he was more surprised than hurt. When the crying subsided, Baby B looked at me and smiled, and lifted his hand to try it again.

I picked him up, looked in his big blue eyes, and said in my mean mama voice, “No hitting! Do NOT hit a baby! You are being bad!” I put him down and pushed him away from me and turned to his brother who needed a diaper change. What I had previously been doing was saying, over and over, “no hitting”, “hitting is bad”, “hitting hurts” and the like. I had not told the baby he was bad, just the action was bad. But I am so so so SICK of the hitting and so sick of the biting and so grouchy and intolerant these days, I suddenly decided to take the hard line.

Baby B was rather upset. He cried and reached up to have me hold him and wept and followed me around, and again tried to get me to pick him up. Again I told him, “Hitting is bad. You are bad when you hit. Do not hit,” and put him away from me again. He walked over to the infant in the stroller again and said, “Baby?” He had a look like he was going to hit him again, so I went over and removed him from the infant. Baby B got his arms around my neck and held on tight. I knew he was upset and I hugged him back and told him I loved him so much. I know he understood that, but I wonder if he understood the no hitting thing?

What can I do, apart from really stay on top of them? Baby A is the biting boy and Baby B is smack happy. They do it to each other at home and I will tell you; the screams of pain when they bite each other and my feelings of helplessness to stop it are just a few of the many factors that cause me stress these days.

I thought that seasonal affective disorder attacked people in the winter. You might have heard this disorder called SAD, or the Winter Blues. According to the website for The Northern County Psychiatric Associates of Baltimore, Maryland, “about 70-80% of those with SAD are women. The most common age of onset is in one's thirties, …and for every individual with full blown SAD, there are many more with milder "Winter Blues." There seems to be interplay between an individual's innate vulnerability and her degree of light exposure. For instance, one person might feel fine all year in Maryland but develop SAD when she moves to Toronto. Another individual may be symptomatic in Baltimore, but have few symptoms in Miami. Some individuals who work long hours inside office buildings with few windows may experience symptoms all year round. Some very sensitive individuals may note changes in mood during long stretches of cloudy weather.”

Well, this is all very interesting and neat and great, but how does it explain why I am moodier and crankier and less tolerant of the babies now, in the summer, than I was in the winter? Do I have a unique case of The Summer Reds?

A simple answer to my moodiness is two fold. One, the weather has been a bit humid and oppressive these past weeks, and I am feel squashed by the blanket of moist air that is squashing the entire state. And two, the boys are being very clingy and very pissy and very moody themselves, clearly trembling on the brink of another milestone. I think they are going to suddenly wake up one day and start speaking full sentences, and their little minds are feeling the strain.

So here I am, with violent twins, a hot summer and a permanent headache from all the screaming and whining. I wonder if I am suffering from some kind of disorder, or is it just that any human being in the same situation would feel cranky and moody and stressed out? There is that part of me that wants to be the all capable caretaker, to call up the testicular fortitude, and just get a grip and deal with it. There are days when I do just that, but it seems so hard to get the energy when it’s hot and sticky. It also seems that the boys, at 22 months, are a lot more work these days.

There is so much I need to do and want to do during the day; cooking, cleaning, laundry, writing, shopping, errands and so on. There is so much I would like to accomplish with the boys; reading with them, playing brain-nourishing games, encouraging them to eat interesting foods. I want to take them to the zoo, the park, the aquarium, the library, the museum, the ice cream parlor; but it all seems such an effort.

It’s easy to blame the heat for my apathy, and the stress of nearly two years alone with twins, but it seems like a cop out. When I hear about other people and what they do and get done, I feel as if I am letting my boys fall behind developmentally. I mean, at what age do they stop hitting and biting? At what age can they feed themselves? At what age can they listen and stay near me in a store and not run across the automatic door opener and then out into the parking lot? At what age will I again feel the joy of motherhood, or feel that the joys are slightly outweighing, or at least on the same level as, the stress?

The quick solution is to leave them at a day care center, go get some little job somewhere and remove myself from the situation. However, me knowing me as well as I do, I know that would cause a bit of stress in and of itself. By the time I got it together, got us all out of the house and to the day care, to the job, and back again, I’d have no time to do all the little that mean so much to me. Or I’d have to stay up past midnight, instead of past 11:00, as I do now. It’s amazing how much time and energy it takes to keep a home organized. And if I had a job that took me out of the house, I would really not have any time to assist them with their mental and emotional development.

Oh, these Summer Reds, these Summer SADs, this moodiness. Apart from getting away from it all for an evening of exercise twice a week, what can I do? Apart from calling up reserves of tolerance and patience, how can I deal with the stress? And apart from doing the best I can, how how how can I get my children to stop biting and hitting? How?