Well shake it up, baby, now

Tough day, today.

Tough day the last few days, actually.
Liam has started possibly entering his terrible twos. How unfair is that? He's supposed to give me another 5 months! Still, here we are: he has started throwing temper tantrums on the reg, and it's such a major bummer. My sweet, angelic little boy now goes from 0 to 60 (or, from playing quietly with his toys to screeching and flailing) in like, no time at all. And it's just awful. He makes this otherworldly noise, it reminds me of this thing my friend Stephanie used to do when attempting to sing two notes at once, only when Stephanie does it, at most, it sounds like an old timey train whistle. When Liam does it, it's the loudest, highest pitched, most ungodly sound I think I've ever heard.

I'm not sure if he's doing it on purpose but he seems to be going out of his way to hurt himself (throwing himself to the floor, flailing dangerously close enough to a table or wall that he'll hit his head, etc). This is so disconcerting, plus it makes it hard to just ignore him or whatever, because I’m afraid he might actually hurt himself. But, then, if I don’t ignore it, am I encouraging this behavior to continue?

Ugh.

I saw my doctor (also Liam’s pediatrician) yesterday and asked her about this phenomenon, and she assured me it’s nothing personal (which, I mean, of course I knew that…but it was still nice to hear), that he’s just trying to get attention. She said a kid Liam’s age doesn’t yet know the difference between positive and negative attention, that he just wants me to react and when I do I’m positively reinforcing the behavior. Just ignore, says Dr. Harrison, who was nice enough to add that she knows it’s really hard but that it’s harder on me than on him, and the sooner we break the behavior, the better.

But it’s so difficult.

Some of the time he’s focused on something in particular—getting out of the living room, or having more milk in his bottle—and I know he’s going to freak out and possibly hurt himself in the process if I don’t give him what he wants, but if I do give him what he wants, am I turning him into Dudley Dursley? And, how do I tell the difference between a tantrum for attention, and frustration because I can’t properly interpret what he’s asking for? That’s part of the trouble of having a not terribly vocal kid, I guess. Hopefully that’ll change soon?

Anyway. No real point to this post, except to vent a little. Anyone else having troubles like this? Any possible solutions would be very much appreciated!