Why You Little...

I made it through the entire weekend without wanting to strangle R. In fact, I didn't want to inflict any bodily harm upon her. This is a good thing! And a huge improvement over last weekend. Apparently, the terrible twos strike each child in a different manner, and for R, they involve wide mood swings between anger and tears with lots of cuddling and hugs in between.

Last weekend was a gigantic battle. We fought over clothes. (R didn't want to wear them.) We fought over leaving a La Leche League meeting. (She wanted to walk up and down the stairs of death to the meeting room 15 more times.) We fought over not stopping at McDonald's when we drove past. (Not that we ever stop there. We generally limit visits to McDonald's to vacation.) We fought over not stopping at a playground swarming with kids when there were no parking spaces, the heat index was approaching 100 degrees, and it was lunch time. We fought, fought, fought. And R, who is usually pretty reasonable, would not compromise. Any "no" from me just led to immediate tears. Big, noisy, my-mom-is-beating-me level tears. And then she would want hugs to know that she was still loved. And the worst part was all drama was just for me. She was fine around Jeff.

Last week things settled down and evened out a bit more. There was a lot less anger, and the battles she fought were evenly distributed between Jeff and me. She watches Sesame Street every day, and each day she sobbed when the TV was turned off at the end of the episode. The clothing battles continued. Jeff ended up letting her wear whatever she wanted since at least she was covered. One day she was wearing an orange butterfly shirt, pink and black polka dot biker's shorts, and red socks with locomotives on them when I came home from work. On Thursday, she didn't even get dressed and was still in her pajamas when I arrived at home. On Sunday she kept taking her pants off. And her shoes never stay on, even in public. She is fairly good about handing them to us after she removes them, but she does not want to wear shoes and will only tolerate them if her feet are touching the ground at that instant.

The meltdown that makes me smile occurred while I was making dinner one night. As I was cooking, she started sobbing hysterically in the little hallway next to the kitchen. When I asked her what was wrong she eventually calmed down enough to say, "Coooorrrrrn." Yes, she was hyperventilating because we were having green beans and mushrooms (two of her favorites) instead of corn (her favorite of the week). So she got a big hug and we agreed to have corn for lunch the next day. Unfortunately, she overheard me mentioning the incident to Jeff, and that started a whole new mournful cry for "Coooorrrrn!"

It will be interesting to see what this week brings...