A serious case of the almost-threes

Well. We have been having an interesting time with our older child lately. Despite being sure that we, unlike anyone else we know, would be immune to the child-starts-preschool/daycare-and-becomes-more-aggressive syndrome, Mateo, indeed, has started preschool and become more aggressive. Or something. It's probably a combination of starting preschool, picking up the tension relating to the unbloggable thing, plus picking up on the stress Sacha's been dealing with at school, plus being almost three, plus the cat suddenly dying over the weekend...but wow, he is a handful lately.

He's been throwing things, hitting us, shoving his friends, running away from us outside and inside, and generally testing limits all over the place. Unfortunately, social events like playdates seem to unleash the worst behavior - he doesn't want to see his friends, doesn't want them to come over to our house or us to go to theirs, doesn't want to share with them when he does see them, and will reliably hit/kick/knock them down the minute I turn my back.

I know this is a phase, but it's not much fun for anyone. We've been trying to give him more positive attention, reassurance, and cuddles, as well as being consistent with consequences for negative behavior. We also spend a nice long time at naptime and bedtime snuggling him and helping him wind down. I'm going to try just having him stay with me (ie, attached to my body) at the beginning of playdates, until he gets comfortable, which did help a little today.

Sacha and I were talking last night about how these periodic difficult episodes (with behavior and sleep, mostly) usually last a month or two and then taper off into something better, so let's keep our fingers crossed that that is the case this time! This has been going on since early September, so we should start seeing improvement soon, right?