Start of the terrible two's?

We had a difficult night last night.

At 11pm, Dominic suddenly awoke and went into his temper tantrum - for 2 whole hours! He cried and shouted and scolded. We coaxed, threatened, sang, told stories and looked out the window, bribed him with biscuits and water - all to no avail. He was inconsolable!

Finally, he settled down when we turned on his favourite Buddhist VCD. After watching it a while, he went into the bedroom, but refused to sleep, until Daddy told him some stories. It was about 1.30am when he finally succumbed to sleep. We were all exhausted from the ordeal! You can imagine how stoned the three of us were this morning.

The helper did admirably, she was really patient and kind towards Dominic. Much better than me!

There really wasn't any trigger for his tantrum. Lately Dominic has been more short-tempered and hot-tempered. He'd throw a tantrum at the slightest matter, and it took a lot to pacify him. The other night he refused to join the family for dinner at a restaurant, threw such a tantrum that he spent the evening walking around outside and went without his dinner. We are really quite clueless how to handle him.

Is this a sign that the terrible two's are starting?? Dominic is approaching 22 months. It is getting to be a struggle with him - when we want to walk, he wants to stop, and when he wants to stop, we need to go! It's a struggle to get him to follow our instructions.

From what I've read about the terrible two's, the tantrums come about because the toddler is showing his independence and expressing his will, thus the constant fights and tantrums. I hope it is just a phase and that Dominic's temper would mellow. Often I'd stop short of complaining because where could his temper have come from if not me? :P

In the meantime I want to try to work on him getting used to eating at a table in a restuarant. Maybe we should take him out to dine more often. It'd be a challenge, but it'll be worth it for Dominic's development.