THE tantrums are continuing, I am sad to report.

I was hoping it would just be a case of a week or two and he would snap out of it.

The kid just doesn’t get it that the more he whines and stamps his feet the less inclined mum is to meet his demands.

This approach is all well and good when I have an hour or two to spend observing his ever-deepening shade of red face, but not when I’m on a bit of a deadline, say for example work, or, as was the case the other day, swimming.

Putting aside the fact we only go swimming for his benefit anyway as I have a faultless front crawl, it was a monumental effort just getting him in the car to go.

In an effort to do everything but get his sweet cheeks out of the door he tried to engage me in the merits of walking to the swimming pool.

When this request was flatly refused on the grounds that it was not physically possible in the seven minutes we had to play with, it was not taken well.

He defiantly plopped to the floor wailing, at which point I removed myself from the room to silently scream in the kitchen.

With as much of a breezy tone I could muster I returned a moment later to politely enquire as to whether he could see his way to getting a move on. He broke off mid-wail to inform me that, he was in fact ‘cwying’ and that I was to ‘grow away’.

I responded that my goal of getting him in the car remained the same so I would not in fact be ‘growing’ anywhere. Additionally I enquired, would it be possible for him to consider continuing the wailing in the car so we could both achieve some sort of progress.

Again a non-starter. So I sat myself down in an exaggerated pose, checking my watch and huffing and puffing before the penny finally dropped that the car would remain the only option open to him no matter how long it took. After a few more half-hearted whimpers and a couple of sniffs he stood and walked over to me and requested a tissue.

Once the snot was blown he sniffled: “Finished cwying now, mummy” before taking my hand and leading me to the car.

We made it to swimming with barely a minute to spare.

Watching him grinning and splashing about in the water moments later I questioned whether this was the same child but opted to shrug it off and enjoy the happy vibe while it lasted.