Terrible 9 months?

Can a child go through the terrible two's at 9 months? Joseph has recently started crawling and unfortunately, mobility is not agreeing with him. It's not that he doesn't like to crawl, he loves it and it has opened up a whole new world for him to discover. All of the sudden in the last week or so, its like he is seeing the world for the first time. EVERYTHING fascinates him. I love the look of wonderment on his face when he discovers a knob on a door he's never been able to get to before and the pure joy when he gets to touch it! He has to touch everything, feel everything, look at everything. And by EVERYTHING...I mean EVERYTHING...things babies shouldn't be touching. This is where the problem comes in.

Joseph has toys upon toys upon toys at our house...they are spilling out of every storage space available, but they are not interesting. Power cords, my food, sharp objects, glass...that is the really interesting stuff. When Joseph makes a beeline for these things, we remove them or him from their vicinity. That's when the screaming, crying, kicking and pure out tantrum starts. Today's tantrums were induced by the following (but are not limited to the following):

* Taking my laptop away so that he can't destroy the screen and keypad.

* Coming home from the grocery store - we have a lot of fun and Joseph gets a lot of attention at the grocery store and he does not really like coming home where its just me and his toys.

* My food. Despite the fact that even Puffs make him gag and vomit, he wants to try to eat my food. If I put the plate where he can't get to it, we have a tantrum. Below is video from yesterday's tantrum during lunch.

* Me talking on the phone. Joseph wants the phone if I have it and he doesn't appreciate me talking to someone and not devoting my full attention to him.

* Being removed from any activity he is enjoying.

* Diaper changes - he has to stop moving for 3 minutes - this is a HUGE problem in his opinion.

This goes on ALL day. The worst tantrum today was when he was eating his yogurt for lunch and watching a great Noggin show. Everything was going fine and then he noticed I was drinking a Coke. He HAD to have the Coke. When I took the Coke away, he had an epic meltdown. I removed him from the situation and tried to preoccupy him with his little ride-on car. This was the reward I got for my efforts.

This is clearly a temper tantrum. Note how several times he quickly stops crying, looks at me out of the side of his eyes, sees I am still paying attention, and continues the tantrum.

We have consulted several online sources and parenting books and the general rule seems to be to remove the child from the situation and try to calm them down. If they won't calm down, put them in their crib, close the door and give them a few minutes to calm themselves down. He's way too young to understand why he's being "punished", but he needs to be able to calm himself down. We had a few trips to the crib today....

One book has a section on "challenging babies" and even breaks them down into different types of challenging babies. The following perfectly describes Joseph, an active baby.

"Active babies are a constant challenge (they sleep less than most, become restless when feeding, can be extremely frustrated until they are able to be independently mobile, and are always at risk of hurting themselves), but they can also be a joy (they are usually very alert, interesting, interested and quick to accomplish)."

So our active baby is giving us a run for our money these days. I am exhausted...mentally and physically at the end of the day. I am trying hard to maintain my patience but I would be lying if there aren't moments throughout the day when I think I just can't take the screaming anymore. Luckily, Rich is trying to go in a little later and come home a little early until we get through this stage. This is a stage, right???? We are going to the pediatrician for his 9 month check up on Thursday so I am hoping for some professional advice.