Head-Banging

Brock was the funniest baby, being a typical redhead he didn’t deal with frustration very well. Now add that on to being 18-24 months old and you have a real combination for hilarious situations! His favorite way of expressing his displeasure with any given situation was to carefully sit down and then bang his head on the floor, ground, etc.; then he would cry. That, of course, made us laugh!

Rebekah and the boys had come to visit us in Palmdale in February 2003. We used to have these wonderful week long visits when the daddies were at work and the mommies just needed some adult company! One of the things that Bek needed to accomplish while she was in Palmdale was getting her taxes done at Foothill Business services. I offered to wait in the car with the boys so we didn’t have to drag them all inside. You can imagine that hauling 3 boys everywhere you go could give a mom a headache (but Grammies aren’t as susceptible to these types of headaches anymore!) I’d given Bek some Advil, but somehow one of them had dropped on the floor.

I knew that we would be waiting for quite a while so I liberated the boys from their car seats. Brocky climbed up in front with me while the “big boys” played in the back. Brock scrambled down onto the floor and found the Advil Mommy had dropped. Did you ever notice that an Advil tablet looks an awful lot like M&M’s? Well, Brock certainly recognized his favorite treat! I asked him to give it to Grammie; he wanted nothing to do with that plan! After several requests I had to take it from him. He was NOT happy. He glared at me and in his most sassy little 17-month old voice expressed his displeasure that I’d robbed him of his M&M! This made me laugh and I told him it was medicine and I didn’t have any M&M’s. Now he was really mad and started to respond in his most frustrated manner… he started banging his head on the steering wheel and in the process only succeeded in honking the horn repeatedly. Being the very compassionate Grammie that I am I laughed hysterically at his plight! What a funny boy!



Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me that day, but six months later I was doing a photo shoot for Bek & her boys. (This was pre-digital camera days for me and I shot 3 rolls of film! Can I hear a big hurrah for digital!!?) This day Brock wanted to play with an old broom instead of sitting with his family for photos. Ahh... but I got the shots. I'm glad he finally outgrew this phase.

(This story was written as part of the SIH class)