Shotgun Daddy: This Too Shall Pass (I Hope)

"This is my son, and I love him."

It's a mantra I've taken to reciting recently when things get difficult with our dear, sweet Henry. What's the problem, you ask? Nothing much, it's just that he's three years old.

Before we had children we knew all about the Terrible Two's -- that dark age between the innocence of infancy and the enlightenment of pre-school -- but there was nothing terrible about it in our house. For some reason neither Alison nor Henry ever gave us any trouble at age two, but both of them took a turn for the worse almost immediately upon turning three, as if responding to some genetic alarm embedded in their brainstems.

Alison blessed us with tantrums -- steel-cage death match tantrums that stopped our entire world. They would start in the afternoon -- always in the afternoon -- at the end of a long day when our patience was thin and her resistance was thinner. The spark could be something as innocent as a denied request for milk, but the fire would burn with unmatched fury: kicking feet, pounding fists, screaming lungs, the whole bit. It would happen at least two or three times a week, and no matter what the books say, we were powerless to prevent them. Like tsunamis or hurricanes or earthquakes, she was a force of nature, and it was best to just ride out the storm and take inventory later.

The good news, though, is that it passed. It turns out that all those boarding school brochures we collected back then won't be necessary, and we longer live in fear of the tantrum.

The bad news, though, is that Henry is following in his sister's footsteps. He's not a tantrum guy, though, preferring the slow burn over the explosion. His latest nickname, Henry Fussy, has been earned by countless days filled with whining, whining, and more whining. Sometimes it's just a steady crankiness and discontent that lasts from late afternoon to bedtime, but when we're lucky -- and we're about the luckiest fucking family in the world -- he spices it up with his absolute most favoritest word:

No.

When kids first start to talk meaningfully, "no" is usually high on the word frequency chart. It's a word they hear often, it's easy to say, and it helps them to assert their personality. I get all that, but Henry's long past that. What he's doing is taking his pain and spreading it around the entire family, and it sucks.

Something will be bothering him, or there will be something that he wants or doesn't want, and he'll jump into an infinite loop: "Nooo... Nooo... Nooo... Nooo... Nooo... Nooo..." It's long, slow, and grating, and as much as you want it to stop, you know that if you push too hard or ignore too long, the explosion will come.

It's not every day, and it won't last forever, but it raises a question. What do you do with this new truth, this realization that there are times when you don't want to be around your son? When you look at him at your feet, either clinging to your leg or fleeing from your embrace, and all you can think about is how many hours and minutes until bedtime comes, what do you do with the guilt?

But then he stops his tantrum to take a breath, he looks up at you through the tears that have collected in his eyelashes, and he says the four most magical words you've ever heard: "Love you forever, Daddy."

This is when it all becomes clear. You know in your heart that the tantrums are only a small part of your sweet boy, far less significant than his beautiful laugh or his squinting smile. You remember the boy who tells you to be careful when he sees you standing on a chair, the boy who claps joyously at the thought of dessert, the boy who turns a paper bag into a purse that's just like Mama's.

And in that moment you realize that you can make it through all the tantrums this sweet, little boy can dish out.

This is my son, and I love him.