My wish this year was for a tantrum-free Christmas.

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High hopes and great expectations, I know. But a person has to dream, right?

Did I get that wish? That pie in the sky dream? Nope. Not even close.

We had no less than nine, yes, nine tantrums from our toddler on Christmas Day.

Nine tantrums of varying degrees, from kind of minor, to full-blown melt down. So much for a peaceful day.

Now I can kind of understand if the tantrums were over something substantial. I don’t know, like his older brother taking one of his toys. But no. Most of the tantrums were because he got frustrated over nothing that we could see or make a connection to, and then because he was frustrated, the toddler then threw the toy or item he was holding. This of course led to a bigger tantrum because he suddenly was no longer holding the said item. Apparently he tried to use the force or some other kind of telekinesis trick to bring the object back to him (mostly from right at his feet), but that didn’t work, which turned the tantrum into a bigger meltdown.

We had several episodes of him flinging himself on the floor and doing the ‘thrashing fish’.

You know the one, when they flap their arms and legs around, complete with snot bubbles. This was over, well actually, I have no effing idea what they were over.

Once again, like the toddler tornado that he is, there was little warning and thankfully didn’t last *too* long.

Give me strength. Did I mention that it wasn’t even mid-morning at this stage?

Champagne was drunk before lunchtime. Lots of chocolate was consumed.

At least we managed to get a pretty decent nap from the toddler so we could all regather our mental strength and fortify ourselves with more chocolate for the afternoon stint.

The paper hats from the Christmas crackers were not well-received. Apparently they pissed off the toddler for some reason. He didn’t like the rest of us wearing them either, despite him having an obsession with hats…

By the time the afternoon rolled around, my husband and I were exhausted. We had had a water pistol fight outside with our seven year old  – that ended in tears as apparently we weren’t playing fair; we’d set up the toddler’s water and sand activity table and helped him with that, but he just wanted to try and take his brother’s water pistols (cue more tears); we’d watched some cartoons and had plenty to eat to ensure blood sugar levels were stabilised, and played with the new toys. But everyone was still cranky.

In the end, my husband and I threw caution to the wind, got changed into running gear, chucked the pram and kids in the car and took them for a run. Our seven year old managed to run 4km and our toddler was enjoying the scenery at the lake so much that he managed to forget why he was cranky.

Finally! A slight reprieve.

When we eventually got the kids ready for bed, our seven year old mentioned how awesome the day was and could we do it again tomorrow?…

*anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes, but any tantrum seems like it lasts for ages!*

Did you have a tantrum-free Christmas? Please SHARE in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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