It’s been a bit of a extreme week for us, with a lot of highs and lows.

Monday morning, we discovered that our water heater went out. Luckily for me, I finished my shower before all the hot water was gone. Unfortunately for Brian, he had to take a cold shower!

While we planned to have the part on Tuesday and only have one day without hot water, it did stretch to 2 days, and got more complicated when Brian got a flat tire on Monday evening!

We got a brand new car just about a month ago, so the flat tire was a bit of a shock (it was due to a nail). It made pick up and drop off and deciding where to shower in the morning a little complicated. We did buy the supplemental warranty though, which has already nearly paid for itself because we ended up needing a new tire altogether.

Meanwhile, Jameson began using the potty! All of a sudden, he seemed to understand how that part of his body worked, and he began using the potty at school consistently whenever they would put him on it. He doesn’t understand holding it yet, but knows how to make his body go.

This major event also coincided with him biting a classmate, which hasn’t happened in a long time since it seemed to be related to teething before.

Wednesday evening, Brian’s parents came over and while Brian and his dad replaced nearly all the parts in our water heater, Brian’s mom watched and played with Jameson. Since I couldn’t do dishes just yet, I laid out by the fireplace. That was so nice!

We had pizza for dinner, and all was well, finally.

Thursday evening though it all fell apart again. Jameson continues to use the potty at school and at home, so we decided to run out and get him a seat for downstairs as well. That, along with two other short errands, and we were home by 6:30 which is Jameson’s usual dinner time.

Jameson was hungry and wanted a snack, so we gave him one and put on Elmo while we heated leftovers for dinner. But when that snack was over, he didn’t want dinner, he wanted another snack. And he had an absolute meltdown.

An hour long full on tantrum. We tried everything to calm him down, starting with a time out, followed by holding him, bath time, more holding and trying to distract or startle him. Nothing worked, including his very favorite loveys: Mr. Bear and B Blanket.

During the bath, he stood the entire time, crying “no no no” over and over. When I finished bathing him, and asked if he wanted out, the “no no no” continued. What helped was knowing that I understand toddlers can’t control their emotions yet. He wasn’t in any more control than I was, and couldn’t help it.

I did take a picture of him. For posterity. I was trying to find some humor in a situation horribly lacking. He continued to yell.

We even tried turning on the shower to shock him for a second, and turning lights on and off. We finally got his diaper on, and Brian was going to put him to bed with milk. At this point, we had even tried to ask him if he was in pain or hurt somewhere, since it had gone on so long, but he continued to answer in yelling, crying, “no’s” and flailing of arms.

I returned to the room gathering up laundry and asked him if he wanted to help mommy put his eyeball shirts in the wash so he could wear them tomorrow, and he lifted his arms up to get picked up. We went to the laundry room, where he spotted 3 dice.

(The dice were in there from a previous time that I had taken them away and wanted them out of his sight. Really, I need to get rid of them)

He picked them up, and went totally silent.

Where to go from here? We took him to our bedroom and asked him if he wanted to watch Elmo under mommy and daddy’s covers, which he did. We laid there next to him for about 15 minutes, watching Sesame Street.

We convinced him to get in his pjs. He said “zip zip”. I asked him if he felt better, and he said “yeah”. I told him mommy was happy he felt better.

And then we actually went down at bedtime and finally ate dinner. Jameson ate some of his left over pizza, and then he ate some of our rice and pork. Surprisingly, since he never really ate any significant quantity of pork before.

This morning, he was cheerful and excited to wear his eyeball shirt (he asks to wear them every morning). However, when I tried to take photos this morning with the 23 month blocks, he completely refused and started to get upset. He got up and walked away a couple times. We gave up, hoping for a better mood later… I certainly hope this passes quickly.