It finally happened.

Joey is 4.
Up until now he's been a dream child - laid back - not too much ever bothers him.
He didn't have terrible twos, or triffling threes. In fact he was SUCH a good baby - we counted our blessings and justified our good fortune by saying that we deserved a good one after the other hooligans provided me so much blog fodder in the early years.
Indeed - the older boys are the very reason that "Tales from a mom of boys" was borne - as I needed some sort of outlet to keep my sanity and it was good to record all their shenanigans for posterity, or in case I need to blackmail them or guilt them into something at a later date (Anniversary cruise to Greece is looking nice)
Last year Joey's verbal skills and receptive understanding was placed at 9 months (spoken) and 12-18 months receptive - He was just over 3 and had yet to say anything beyond "baby', 'bubble', 'mum' and 'Backpack' (Thankyou Dora) so really, I had a baby for 3 years and now my baby is technically 4 but with the speech and cognition placed somewhere around 2 or 2-1/2 so guess what we have finally entered, a few years late......
Yep, the terrible 2's.
It's just like the regular terrible 2's except he's bigger - and while he's actually not terribly large for being 4 - he is large for being 2!
He is mostly toilet trained (bladder, not bowel) and has finally begun acting like a 2 yr old. Because he is finally old enough to understand discipline - he's been getting it (much to his dismay) and finding out that he does not like being warned, having time outs or swats on the bum (which he's never actually gotten, but just the idea of it sends him into a rainman monologue of "no spank, Joey no get a spank"
He has made an assumption that after a year of us rewarding him for saying words - for using his voice and for generally making noise, that we must like noise, and if talking is rewarded - surely yelling and screaming will get him a pony!
Oh how wrong you are sonny boy.
He chose to exercise this assumption today in Walmart - with loud shrill screeching sounds that make shopping most unpleasant and even more so by people who look and think that 'a child that age should be better behaved - why that is terrible behaviour for such a big boy' - but really, he's for all intents and purposes 2 - and although he is chronologically 4 - he is 2 in all other respects. So the piercing 'listen to me make noise' screeching was not being contained by my pleading calm "Joey, be quiet" words so I had to pull out the big ones, Especially after he answered me with a resounding terrible two "NO".
Gah
I threatened to give him a time out right there in the store.
"joey - do you need a timeout"

"NO - No spanking"

"Stop your screaming or you will have a time out"

"NoooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" (this changed to screaming halfway through his long no)

So, right there in walmart - I stood him against a pillar - face in to stare at nothing while we had a timeout.

It was a little awkward as the pillar I chose happened to have a price checker thing on it - so there was more traffic than I would have liked, and we were also fairly close to the checkouts, so I had more people staring at me holiding a child pressed against a pillar while saying "you will stand there until you can behave" more for the benefit of the people around me.
See people - I am disciplining him - I'm a good mum, not letting him behave atrociously by screaming in the store, no siree, we do time outs yes we do and it will work.

It did not work.

"Mum, want to get out"

"No you were screaming are you ready to stop now?"

"No" (I know full well he didn't understand the question, but to the people around me - he certainly looked belligerent.

"Say Sorry mummy"

"Sorry Mummy" (Ha - sometimes that old echolalia comes in quite handy - Take that all you looky lous, I tell him to say it and he does - what a wonderful disciplinarian I must be with parenting skills for all to envy.)

I let him leave his time out space and he took 4 steps and promptly pulled a spaghetti boy sit on the floor tantrum.

Are you getting the full picture yet?

This is the point where I just walk away - Ha, I'm no first time mum, been there done that and I've learned that when I walk away, you just can't look back - that shows weakness - No - be strong - don't break first - don't look back.
We have to temper this with our gut feeling to make sure that temper tantrum boy hasn't up and decided to take off to the Walmart McDonalds because he IS cute - and people will feed him french fries if he saunters up to the table and says "French Fry"
So I finally swallow my pride and realize that every kid is different, and even though I've done the terrible 2's (twice) it does not make me an expert, and I have no prediction skills at all for what THIS one might decide to do. I grabbed his hand and headed to the express lane where someone was SO not being express (Hello - 14 items - stop hogging the express lane you illiterate sign ignorer you!) I have a 2 yr old who is really 4 yrs old rolling on the floor and stretching out - and the 6 express lanes are not moving because #3, #4, and #6 are closed, #5 has a light on but nobody at the cash register - oh there she is over talking to the other girl at #2, who is not taking customers because they are having that "important we're busy with serious Walmart related stuff and can't serve you, but really we're talking about our nails and did you see that girls hair at that party last night? OMG, it was so nasty, and oh, I better go back to my cash register soon because the express lane is starting to get *reallllllly long - OMG, look how long it's getting while we chat about stupid unimportant things".
#1 had the 14 items that could not be rung up because there was a missing UPC code or something - maybe the guy was complaining about the colour of the box, but it took 8 people and a lot of time and unnecessary huffing to rectify and in the end he paid with his stupid credit card AND wanted cash back - because hey, I'm in the express checkout, and Im being served and I'll take up the one available checkout's time because me me me me.
And this is where it sometimes comes in handy to have a screeching toddler because 14 items guy was getting annoyed. GOOD. You've annoyed me with your existence in that checkout with your 14 items, so you can be annoyed by my screeching on the floor child - who would be a safe ear splitting distance away if you'd waited in the regular lane and not tied up the one available express lane for 10 minutes.

Got home and Joey promptly showed off his toddler climbing skills. On the coffee table. On the kitchen table. Climbing up the stairs on the wrong side of the railing. Yep he's in the terrible two's. 2 years late.

Here we go again!