DVD's, meltdowns, and bubbles, oh my

Little Bitty had a meltdown today over his DVD's, namely, not being able to find them. After months of his DVD obsession and several lost and broken DVD's we slowly dwindled his "stack" until we finally hid them one day and pretended to have no clue where they were. For the most part, he has moved on to other things but sometimes he still goes to the closet where he thinks they are and asks "D-D?"

Today was one of those days, and he wasn't taking no for an answer. He went so far as to break the doorknob cover off the closet door (we're in trouble if he can do that on a regular basis now) and start trying to find the DVD's himself. Unfortunately, he couldn't find any, so the meltdown began. Screaming, crying, rolling around on the floor, not a happy camper whatsoever. We're no strangers to meltdowns, so I took it in stride as much as I could, but you can only take so much of the screaming before you feel like joining him on the floor for a little rolling and screaming of your own.

So, in my attempts to distract him (most of which were met with louder screams and throwing whatever I offered him on the floor), I came across a bubble gun that we'd stashed away for "emergency" use. Seeing no end in sight to the meltdown, I figured this was just the right time to break out some bubbles. Keep in mind, bubbles can be a double-edged sword at our house, because while they are great for calming down little boys in our family, the end of said bubbles can bring on an even bigger meltdown than the one you were trying to stop in the first place. So use carefully and at your own risk.

But I was desperate, so out came the bubbles. I showed him and he stopped screaming and said "bubba!" Of course the bubbles quickly attracted the attention of his big brothers, who up until that point had been busy playing Mario Kart. Suddenly I had a swarm of three laughing, squealing, hopping boys all trying to get bubbles in their hair and see how many they could pop. The boys were all having such a good time, I got out my camera for a few pictures :). After several minutes of bubbles, I handed off the bubble gun to Bearhug so he and Cuddlebug could take turns making bubbles. They went through the entire bottle of bubble-liquid.

Little Bitty started to have another meltdown when I put the bubbles away, I made him tell me what he wanted (he can sign/say "more bubbles") and then brought out the bubble gun to try to get a few more bubbles out before it was completely empty. Then I managed to distract him with something else and luckily he was on to other things...