Terminator 2

Our house is a war zone, every event of the day is a new battle. From the second we wake up in the morning Wade and I are in our combat gear ready to take on our 2 year old Terminator.

Is this life in the "Terrible 2s"? Just recently another mom told me that she was told 3 year olds are worse...is that even possible? One minute she is this sweet little girl and the next she is a 2 foot tall screaming banshee who HATES everything! (actually she doesn't say hate yet, just "I don't like it")

A few weeks ago when this all started, it was only happening when I dropped her off at Mimi's. What a treat to begin the day with your daughter clutching onto her car seat and screaming "No Mommy..drive!" once I wrestle her out of the car seat and into the house, she cries and screams when I say goodbye. Lucky for Wade daycare is down the street from my office so he does not have to fight this battle.

Now everything we do is a fight...brushing teeth, brushing hair, getting dressed, putting her jacket on, eating dinner, taking a bath- this is a new one, it started last night. Wade started the bath, the same as he does every night and brought her into the bathroom and she started screaming and crying, "I don't like the tubbie, I don't like the bath". Well...too bad, we plopped her into the tub and scrubbed her down as fast as we could.

She fights to good fight at bedtime every night too. This might be the worst one. She sleeps in a bed, which until about a week ago, she never got out of once we put her in at night. Now, even after many reminders that bedtime is coming, she still begs for one of us to lay down, then she jumps out of the bed and runs to the door of her room and stands there crying and yelling "Mommy I want to hold you!" or "Daddy, lay down!" (we keep a baby gate in front of her door- luckily she has not figured out how to climb over it yet, I am sure its only a matter of time)

Then this morning, she wants a sandwich before we leave the house. So I make her a peanut butter sandwich and stand her at the table to eat it so Magoo won't get it and so I don't end up with peanut butter all over the house. And I go upstairs to get dressed because we have 5 minutes before we need to leave. And of course, Magoo snatches the sandwich. Now she is crying, and I spank Magoo and throw him outside so she can eat the rest of the sandwich and I can get dressed because we have 3 MINUTES until we have to leave.

At this point she is over the sandwich and wants to get down from the table and Magoo is standing at the back door, not remembering that he got spanked and just barking for someone to throw him the ball and I am getting dressed thinking about what a crappy dog mom and kid mom I am. Grrrrrr!

All this and she isn't even 2 yet...