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I'm looking for some advice from the other parents out there.  Here's the issue....

Its A Monday Miracle

This morning when I finally decided to get out of bed I was pretty sure that things where gonna be hell.  I didn't want to start the day, how was I going to gently persuade The Boy to do it?

But you know what?  It happened.  After almost ten minutes of telling him it was time to get up he finally made his eyes open and agreed to come down stairs to watch cartoons.  He is not a morning person, much like his mom, so to make the transition easier we grease the morning wheels with cartoons.  Once he was officially up, he got dressed and we even did his hair.  The rest of the morning went just like clock work.  When I told him to get his shoes he did right away and even put them on the right feet.  He waited for me and then asked for his coat, which was needed since its was in the 60s (!) this morning.  When I told him to get in the car he paused and I hesitated waiting for the meltdown to begin but he merely asked for a kiss first.  Ahhh, my baby!  My heart!

It was all, dare I say, easy breezy? 

When we rolled up on daycare he claimed it as his which made me excited.  The anxiety of a meltdown happening at any moment left me on edge the entire morning and when an obstacle was met without tears and yelling my excitement mounted.  By the time he walked into his classroom and decline a hug (which is completely normal) I was a tremor of excitement.  When I told him goodbye and he waved and said "Bye Mom"  I'm pretty sure I floated out to the car on a cloud of maternal love and pride. 

It was a fucking Monday Miracle!

Yay Mondays and Pity Parties

I must preface this post with the fact that I feel poopie. And when I feel poopie I get whiny and complain a lot. This is no bright side or silver lining. There is pouty mouth with a bigger than average lower lip. There is the glass half empty pity-party and I’m the only attendee.
So the weekend was a whirlwind of pumpkins, hay bales, petting zoos, costume changes, outlandish temper tantrums, more costume changes, trick or treating in no costume with a bunch of other people in costumes, cleaning, nap-skipping, baking, cider (spiked with moonshine) and more pumpkins and pumpkin guts and pumpkin seeds and more temper tantrums because God Damn Two is an exciting time in a person’s life.

I promise to post more about all of that but right now I am in full-bore poopie mode and have a pity party to attend. After the pumpkin carving party and everyone left and we got that devil child I used to claim to bed, Juanito and I were not too far behind. But even after reading for a while, I could not sleep. I laid there with my mind fixated on the fact that I hurt all over and there was this awesome post nasal drip going on. I am so embarrassed to admit that I lost sleep over worry about being sick. Seriously.

So when I woke up (still under the blankets which is rare) I knew before I reached a hand out from under my warm cocoon that I was getting sick. This is the stage where I don’t feel 100% but there is nothing that warrants being home and not going to work. The pity party stems from the fear that this will turn into something worse and I have no control over when or to what degree it will happen.

When I finally made the decision to get out of bed I also decided that I would not let this impact me. I was fine. Ignore it, it will go away. If you were really sick you would be running a fever. All the great things my upbringing has taught me. I had to wake The Boy which is becoming a morning thing and his recent resistance to the mornings makes me fear his teenage years. But he eventually came to and decided he would watch cartoons and drink his morning juice.

But when I decided it was time to get dressed that is when the battle royale began. He wanted to wear his pajamas to daycare and I did not want him to wear his pajamas to daycare. The battle of wills commenced and when faced with a time crunch I start to lose my shit, quickly. My yelling and his yelling peaked at a cacophony of “no pajamas for daycare”, “I wan dees!” and “I just want you to wear pants!” When I was at my breaking point I walked away, which is all I know to do. He cried even harder. My heart breaks because I feel like a horrible mom who is abandoning him. I don’t know how to explain to him that I must walk away for me and its not because of him, even though it is. I’m just setting guidelines and rules that are totally normal, why can’t he see that? Damn it, I wanted to stay in bed too and I wanted to stay in my pajamas but damn it we can’t. Lower lip - commence droop and quiver. We have to get up and go, insert scowl. We have responsibilities that suck. This is the sound track of my pity party and its on repeat.

I said fuck it to the makeup and the other side of my hair. I just decided to pull it back in a ponytail and slap on a wee bit of mascara. Why try when my heart isn’t in it? I returned to the ball of crying boy in my living room and without fanfare of conversation forced him into his shorts and tee shirt. We cried the entire time. I feel like I raped him. I forced him to brush his hair and teeth. I was not rough. I did not yell. When I did speak it was a calm warm voice that was really more for me than him. When I offered to put his sweat shirt on his tears subsided and he willingly put on his jacket and grabbed his blanket to go.

When we got to daycare and I opened his door he gasped and cooed in the sweetest voice “Mommy!” I felt like an even bigger monster of an asshole. So my resolve at 5:45 am to not allow the poopies impact my day was totally eradicated by 7:05 am. I am still whiny and the post nasal drip has become a runny nose and I’m popping Halls Breezers like an addict to keep my throat from reminding me that I feel like shit.

T Minus Three Months

We’re in the final descent of the terrible twos. Not sure if this ride is coming to an end or this is just a dip before the triple spiral that will propel by sheer force all of the gum that we’ve ever swallowed out of our bellies.

Sunday night someone in the house had back to back melt downs around dinner time. I would try and throw Alfie under the bus on this one but who am I kidding; that guy barely completes one task let alone does it again. We were a little bewildered since the temper tantrums seem to be spacing themselves out over the last few weeks.

How I love this happy face

But this week as been heart wrenchingly wonderful. The Boy is silly and fun in the morning. He does this hide-hide-hide thing where he hides under something and then giggles until you find him. I can’t remember my mornings before him and I don’t want to. He (and Juanito) is playing outside with the neighbor kids or in the back yard in the evening. He has even willingly come to the dinner and even occasionally ate dinner with us. His speech is improving every day .

They say that three is the new two as far as the behavior problems. I’m not sure if we should prepare for more loop de loops or throw our hands in the air and scream?

Category 4

Temper tantrums. They have taken on a new meaning for me these days. Before I thought they were emotional outbursts stemming from some selfish well that bubbled up and oozed over everything, permeating it with snotty retorts, eye rolling and patent leather Mary Jane’s tapping out the anger.

But like I said that was before The Boy gained some independence. Before The Boy learned how to kick not out of frustration but with the intent to do harm. Before the biting could sever not just your hand but all of you out of the situation. And way before he understood the power of ear piercing, glass shattering screeching. 

Now temper tantrums are violent and loud and scary. The rage inside his little body is just beyond me. And like how I imagine the devil being expelled from a boy during an exorcism, his limbs flail about and saliva sprays from his mouth and snot runs from nose, both nostrils, making his face a hot pink slip and slide. Trying to hold on to him is a little like trying to stay on a mechanical bull. You know that is gonna buck and spin. You just don’t know when the asshole running the controller is gonna do it. You’re all prepared to buck and the little slimy sucker spins. And what takes all of this to a whole new level now is the ear piercing screaming. The one that starts loud by everyone’s standards but we know that its just a warning. Juanito says The Boy is like a tornado these days. Just the right atmospheric conditions can set him off and you know where or when he will touch down or how much damage he will do when it does eventually happen. I could parallel his screeching to perhaps a tornado whistle/warning system. But now imagine that said whistle is right in your ear.

And it’s biting you.

I know that these are the terrible 2s.  I know that this is his way of handling situations he feels out of control in.  I know that we the adults need to identify the time he is testing us and the times the limits test him back.  I know all the articles I've read on handling the Terrible Twos.  I know what my sisters say/did.  I know what friends say.did.  None of this logic is with me when a two year old is kicking in the crotch and/or stomach screaming blood curdling screams "No Daddy"

When I tell people stories of these microbursts, they ask, “What do you do?” All I can say is that I don’t hit him. Now before you call Child Protective Services (CPS) on me hear me out. I love my son. Words will never be enough to express my love for my son. In those moments, those, sweating, snotty, whirling violent thrusts of independence and parental control, the only thing I can focus on is that I love my child and do not react. If an adult came at me like The Boy does I would swing back to protect myself and then call the authorities because that guy is foaming at the mouth and it ain’t right. But when its your child, the extension of all that is good between you and your partner, who is now most obviously possessed by the devil, all you can remember to do is hang on and not go to that instinct.


I am only thankful that when the neighbors do call CPS to report the apparent child abuse it will be Daddy who gets in trouble.  It sounds like Mommy is never around.