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As I write this, Larkin is in her room, screaming. It's a terrible, soul-crushing sound.

"She's upset that I tried to put her shoes on," Molly said when I went over to see what was up.

Larkin is just a year and a half old, but she has started the Terrible Twos already. She tests boundaries, she whines, she throws the occasional full-blown tantrum -- you know, the kind where she arches her back, goes rigid, and falls to the floor, writhing in spastic agony.

It's not surprising to me that my child has tantrums. What surprises me is that I do, too. Things go wrong, and I react with self-pitying petulance or teeth-gritted fury. "You never really know how angry you can be until you have children," a friend with grown kids said to us recently. And it's true.

Molly feels it in particular when Larkin bites or pinches her. "I don't know why," she says, "but that gets me in a deep place." I know what she means. You put yourself out for your child, only to be repaid with a physical assault. Sometimes it seems there's a reckless intention, a who-cares-if-I-hurt-you willfulness. One day I'm holding the Lark, and she's spazzing with unhappiness and ... she head butts me. Hard.

"So," I grumble, jaw clenched. "You're gonna head-butt me, huh?" An animal instinct surges up, and for a tiny instant I have to resist an urge to head-butt her back. Our friend recalls grabbing her children so hard on the arm, she wondered if there would be a bruise left, an outline of her fingers.

These are dark episodes for parents. I still shudder to recall those 3 a.m. scenes when Larkin was a newborn and Molly and I had hardly slept for two nights, with both of us facing a full day of work ahead, and Larkin off on yet another crying jag. I'd pick her up and hold her, walk her around the room; and she'd quiet just long enough for me to put her down and fall half asleep, when, waaaaa!! -- she'd crank it up all over again. Frustration would overwhelm me. All I want is some SLEEP! I'd think. I scared myself at such moments. Not that I'd ever harm my baby. But if I'm honest, I recognized in myself a dark kinship with those who do.

Life with a toddler brings a different kind of frustration. Molly and I find ourselves in crescendoing disasters that are hilarious once they're over, but miserable when we're in the middle of them. You're trying to work full-time and be a real parent, and there's just so much to balance. You're like the circus guy twirling all those plates. How long can he keep them all going at once?

For instance. I've got Larkin in the living room, and I'm sitting on the couch, editing a manuscript. The Lark is amusing herself by turning the volume on the stereo WAY UP and then way down and then WAY UP again. Finally I unplug it, preempt her wail of outrage with an animal-cracker bribe, and turn back to work. In a hopeful segue to her coming nap, I've taken her shoes off, and she's padding around in her green socks. Alas, I forgot about a mug of breakfast tea left on the corner table hours ago. In stealthy silence Larkin pours it on the floor -- I hear a little splashy noise and look up to find her doing that foot-stamping thing kids do in the water at the beach. Her socks are sopped with milky tea and she's grinning gleefully. I whisk her up ... and she drips tea across the rug and onto the newly redone upholstery of the Morris chair. Arrrgggh! A rush to the kitchen for paper towels, and ... boom! Down goes Larkin on the slippery living room floor, smacking her head. Now she's screaming, and I am losing my mind.

It's the classic unfolding catastrophe, each mini-disaster entailing another. Eventually you simply lose it. You pull your hair out -- literally. And hair is a precious commodity on the head of a 49-year-old dad.

My sister and I sometimes compare notes on our respective losing-it scenarios. She has three kids under 7, and a job too, and her daily struggle to get everyone underway can be titanic. Yesterday she told me how she spent two hours of her Sunday afternoon preparing things for the 25 lunches she was going to pack this week, and then on Monday morning had everyone almost out the door when she discovered that her son's milk had spilled in his vinyl lunch bag. She hurled the bag into the sink -- triggering an explosion of milk that drenched the picture window.

"I honestly think I have a rage problem," she said. "I really do."

All parents of toddlers have rage problems. The constant vigilance. The testing of boundaries. The head butts. Your own vain attempt to get some work done. In the lose-it moments, your patience doesn't just wear thin; it wears out. The juggling act falls apart. The plates come crashing down.

So now it's time for your tantrum. Go ahead, let her rip. Hurl the lunch bag into the sink. Fling the soggy paper towels at the garbage can. Then take a deep breath. Clean up the mess. And get those plates back up in the air again.