Here we go again with round two of the Terrible Two's (TTs).  The past week has be difficult, to say the least.  It's as if we had an alien abduction and they've replaced my good-natured girl with a deranged monster.  She's not a monster all the time...she is great all day long at school.  The second she sees me at pick-up time, she starts her melt-down, oh lucky me!  She instantly cries, screaming, "I want mama to hold me!"  I would have to continue to hold her and if I put her into the car seat she starts screaming the same phrase over and over again.  She also sticks her entire right hand into her mouth as she cries and screams.  This will go on the entire rest of the night, through bath and dinner.  This is a daily occurrence the past week.  I'm so mentally exhausted and drained.  Ok, so maybe Buzz went through the same thing...I blogged about it then.  But I think Ahgoo's tantrums are even more fierce and lasts longer than Buzz's.  In addition, with two kids, it's just more exhausting.

So I scoured the internet to see why American kids throw so many tantrums!  I asked my mother if I had thrown these tantrums as a toddler and she, without hesitation, told me, "No, you were such a wonderful kid, hardly ever even cried!"  Maybe she just had selective memory, who knows!  Well, unsatisfied with that answer, I probed deeper.  Turns out that when I was two, my family had servants, as many well-to-do families did in Asia back in the days.  So the servant/nanny held me all the time.  Ergo, I had no reason to throw tantrums!  Well, fast-forward to our modern, American, nuclear middle-class family life.  Holding a two-year-old all the time just doesn't fit well with having to make dinner, clean kitchen, and bathing her brother. 

So maybe it's our own fault for not being able to cater to my toddlers' every desire.  But I do know one thing though, my kids are definitely spoiled even by my standards!  After immigrating to the US, growing up, money was tight, we knew that even from a very young age.  I remember being four and knowing not to ask my mother to buy me this paper doll I really wanted because I knew she had use that money to buy food.  I still remember coming home from kindergarten one day and my mother had surprised me with a small stuff puppy.  That was my very first real stuffed animal, at four!  I cherished it so much that I still have it to this day!  But my kids??  They have so many toys that I think the number of toys exceed the toys a person living in another country has their entire life-time!  I don't even think they appreciate anything they have because they can't possible even remember what they have! 

I have a co-worker friend who used to chat with me about his little boy who is about two years older than Buzz.  He is like me, an immigrant from another country.  He came from Vietnam and basically his parents had to move their family to the US due to the Vietnam war.  Though I never had to escape war, my parents had to work hard to give my brother and I a better life in the US.  So we both used to talk about whether it is possible to instill values into our children without them experiencing all the difficult times we experienced in our childhood.  How can our children learn the value of money if they've never been poor, how can our children appreciate a free education if they've never been denied the privilege, and how can they learn to protect themselves if they've never lived in a bad neighborhood?  But we don't want our children to have to be poor, be mugged, or not be educated!  I try to get them to donate some of their toys but it's an uphill battle, somehow the in-coming is always greater than the out-going.  But part of the struggle is within ourselves.  Mr. BAW told me that it makes him happy to give the kids presents.  I certainly do not want to deny him of the pleasure of having kids.  It is a tough balance to strike.

So I digressed and rambled on about more than just TTs.  What is my near-term solution?  Earlier bedtime!  We'll see how well it works, wish me luck!