It's his party and he'll cry if he wants to...

Tantrums from hell

Everyone says the age of two is terrible. I've been warned, but man nothing could prepare me for how my son would react to being told no, to not being able to communicate with us in a way we could understand... it's heartbreaking. I try so hard to understand what he's saying or how he's trying to communicate what he wants, but sometimes I just can't figure it out.

All smiles for Roman after screaming bloody murder for 30 minutes while getting a haircut.

The head banging...

Around the age of one-and-a-half, the head banging started. He would get so frustrated he would hit his head on the nearest object until my husband or myself stopped him We couldn't figure out why, or how it even started. We didn't want him to hurt himself, so we would try to stop him.

Posing for the camera. I like to joke that this is his high school graduation photo.

Personally, I couldn't tell you if it made it better or worse. Some people told us just to ignore it, while others said to only intervene if he was hurting himself, but we just didn't have the heart to let him self-harm. It's a personal choice, and I feel it's up to the parent to make that choice. You know your baby best.

A year later...

A whole year of banging his head on any nearby object when he wouldn't get his way, or when we simply couldn't figure out what he wanted. I feel hopeless. To this day, if he's frustrated enough, he will still bang his head. We know it's on purpose. We know he's not trying to harm himself. We can tell because he bangs once to see how much it'll hurt, and then try again, and look up at us. While we know it has to do with his lack of communication skills, it doesn't make it any easier.

On top of the head banging around the age of two, started the high-pitched shrilling scream, the kicking, punching, and even eye-gouging. Yeah, you read that right. He would try to gouge out my husband's eyes out of frustration.

His sweet, sweet face...

It's not working...

It soon became obvious that what we were doing, wasn't working. Sometimes out of frustration, and I hate to admit it, we would lose our patience and yell. Sometimes, even smack his but thinking we were being "tough" parents and he just needed discipline. But man, were we wrong.

At Roman's two-and-a-half-year-appointment, our pediatrician said it was now time to get him tested for autism. It was in that moment my husband and I decided what we were doing, wasn't working. So, we changed our reaction to his behavior in hopes his would change too.

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