But it wasn't a truck

We were all sitting in our bedroom, Kate on the couch with Henry; Finn, Jake and I on the floor watching a little TV and playing with the cars. Jake was exploring the space trying to see what he wasn't supposed to play with and what was OK. I turned to see what Jake was getting into and when I looked back there was a truck coming at me. It hit me in the lip as I was laying on the ground and there was Finn finishing his follow through. I immediately got up and grabbed Finn to take him to timeout. I told him he does not throw trucks and that hurt Daddy when he hit him with the truck.

"You hit me right in the face with that truck and now I have an owie on my lip!"

I put him in his timeout chair and closed the door. He was crying and calling for me saying

"I'm sorry I hit you in the face with the truck daddy!" "i'm sorry I hit the truck in the face with daddy" "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for trucks!"

I waited for him to calm down a bit and for me to calm down as well after taking a matchbox car to the mouth at 3 feet away. Then I went in and sat on the bed and asked him

"Why did you throw the truck at me Finn?"

Crying almost hysterically he responded

" I'm saw saw sorry daddy for for for......Daddy it wasn't a tr tr truck, it was a semi!"

It was all I could do to keep from laughing. He knew he was in trouble and that throwing the truck was wrong but he couldn't let this go on any longer. It wasn't a truck, it was a semi and if he was going to have to face the punishment he wanted the record to clearly reflect the make and model of the thrown vehicle. He apologized for throwing the Semi and at me and told me that we only throw balls. H asked if he could kiss my owie for me and then grabbed my lips with both hands and pulled them to him still sobbing a little bit. I am amazed at how quickly you can go from having a good time to being so angry with him you could scream to fighting back laughing because they are so freaking cute. It is a rollercoaster ride this parenting.

He's a bit of a Screamer

Finn has started this screaming phase and he is not letting it go. When he wants something he is not getting he screeches at high pitch in short piercing bursts until you give him what he wants. When we know what it is we can ignore him and not give in so we can try to teach him that we do not respond to this frequency and I think I am better at this than Kate is only because I face it more then she does. It is when we have no idea what he is trying to communicate that it gets really tough to handle. For some reason the scream for the unknown reason makes me go crazy and want to ring his little neck. Why is that? It's not a different sound. It is just as piercing and peace shattering but one has no effect on me, and the other sends me into a Bruce Banner-Hulk metamorphosis. I try and smile at Finn and ask him what he wants and give him some options that I think it might be, but all he does is point and scream. He could be pointing at the wall, or beyond the wall to outside, or to high chair meaning he's hungry or to any number of things that I';m sure make perfect sense to him. We have friends that assure us this phase will end and I know it will too, but in the mean time I need a translation book that translates point-scream to English, I would settle for Spanish even.