I would like to start out with a disclaimer. I love my daughter very much. I would do anything for her and would never hurt her. That said, we aren't getting along very well this week, mostly because she is being a real jerk. Yes, it sounds harsh calling an almost 2-year-old a jerk, but it is true. Most of the time she is very sweet, happy, playful and loving. Not for the past two days. I think the 'terrible twos' may be starting up a little bit early. Whatever the case, I am just about done with this behavior and pretty soon I'm going to... well, I don't know what I am going to do. I am probably not going to do anything because I am a big softy and I suck at discipline. Every time I think I have the parenting figured out, I once again realize that I have no clue what I am doing. How do you discipline a child who doesn't understand emotions? I have no freaking idea.
The problems started a few days ago when she for some reason decided that she wasn't going to sleep anymore. She fights going to bed at night, often times waking up at 2 or 4 a.m. to just raise hell and wake everyone up, and has been awake before 6 a.m. the past two days. She also refuses to nap, falling asleep every day in the car on her way home from school, the park or the store but throwing a vicious fit in her crib as soon as she is transported there. This, combined with a nagging cold and probably a new tooth, has resulted in my life being absolutely f-ing miserable for past 48 hours. I get that most of this is not her fault, with the exception of the lack of sleep- that is her fault, but she can't do anything about the cold or the teeth and that is fine. It doesn't make it any better.
Here are a few examples that I have dealt with. Yesterday I picked her up from school at 12:30. The teachers said she was upset all day and maybe wasn't feeling good because she barely ate. She looked incredibly tired when we got in the car so I gave her a snack and told her to relax. She ate about three Froot Loops and fell asleep before we got home. Not just asleep, mind you, passed out, snoring in the car seat asleep. Like drunk Uncle Phil on the couch at Thanksgiving asleep. As I was carrying her limp, passed out body upstairs like a frat boy taking advantage of a passed out chick at a party she instantly snapped awake, looked around and started yelling to play with the kitties. That sucks. Nothing even woke her up. She just opened her eyes and it was over. I got her inside and did everything in my power to restore her to her state of blissful, unconscious dreaming. No luck. At this point naps are no longer a selfish thing for me. In the past I looked forward to them as my free time and time to catch up on my own sleep but I am used to the routine enough where now I don't care. I just want her to sleep so she isn't a d-bag for the rest of the afternoon.
So, with no nap I Instead decided to make her some lunch. She wasn't feeling great and was tired, so I thought maybe a little pasta and bread might settle her stomach and fill her up enough to go to sleep. Maybe it was her hunger that woke her up. Who knows, it was worth a shot. She willingly sat down in the chair and started to eat, but almost immediately after the first spoon full of pasta started asking for a freeze pop. Yeah, the love of freeze pops has been handed down. Now we fight over them. It is OK though, I am the dad, I just give her all the purple and orange ones and keep the good flavors to myself.
"Daddy, pop? Pop? Pop?" All day.
Anyway, I obviously said no to the freeze pop until after lunch, sparking an angry, aggressive fit. She took the bowl of pasta and sauce and threw it at me. Now, throwing the bowl at me was bad enough, but she has no coordination so it looked like one of those baseball bloopers where the pitcher throws the ball behind him and looks all confused, only it was a bowl of food so the circumstance was much messier. This way, she managed to succeed in throwing the bowl behind her off of the kitchen window and on to the floor, as well as still projecting pasta on to my pants and shoes, on to her own head and down her shirt. As if this was not bad enough, she then took her juice and hurled it up in to the air causing it to slam back down on to the high chair tray and explode. All of this just a mere 60 minutes after I had swept and mopped the floor. I was, to say the least, pissed.
So, I put her in 'time out' which is still like the least effective form of discipline ever, but she is 18-months, what else can I do? Yelling doesn't help. She knew I was pissed and started to suck up to me, but I wasn't having it. I just ignored her and refused to talk to her until the mess was clean. Still, she found a way to melt my heart when she brought me a green crayon as a sign of peace, handed it to me, tugged on my shirt and gave me a kiss. Awww. DAMMIT. Now I can't be mad anymore. Just wait, though, she gave me more opportunities.
For the rest of the day she was still grouchy and mean with fleeting moments of sweetness. At one point she punched me in the nose and bit my neck because I made her take a bath. You know, to clean the sauce off of her head. A short time later we were having a nice, calm time coloring when, right in front of me, she walked over to the full length mirror in the living room and drew all over it with crayon. I said a stern 'no' took the crayon away and made her take a time out. The second I gave her the crayon back she did it again. WTF.
Fast forward to this morning. I first heard her crying at 6:05 a.m., meaning she was awake probably 10 minutes before that, and I finally gave in and got her around 6:15-6:20. I was very tired and did not wake up in the best mood, so I was trying to be calm in the hopes that maybe we could relax in her room and get a slow start to the day. Unfortunately, she had other ideas. Just in the three minutes it took me to change her diaper she yelled at me, punched me and stole the baby powder out of my hand and threw it behind her changing table. Then it was breakfast time.
Usually for us breakfast is smooth. She has cereal, which she eats herself, some toast and some juice. We exchange banter and play a little while I tidy up the kitchen and when she is done she says 'Det Dout?' and I take her out. Today, of course, she wanted a freeze pop instead of the cereal. I said no because it was 6:30 in the morning. Guess what happened next? By the time I was done cleaning up the cereal she had angrily fired across the kitchen I had used half a roll of paper towels. I had to clean the sticky mess off of the floor, the trash can, the wall, off of some wires connected to a radio in the kitchen, out of the inside of a slightly opened cabinet and from underneath the recycle bin. This is in addition to having to change all of her cereal covered clothes. Good morning, Salem.
The rest of the day hasn't gone quite as bad, although she did attempt to throw an entire bag of strawberry flavored Corn Pops out of the cart at Walmart- because I wouldn't open both bags that I was going to buy, only one. She also bit the top off of her juice cup and dumped it all over the back seat of my car- she is damn lucky that was only water. Now she is yelling at me from her crib as she has once again refused a nap, despite barely being able to keep her eyes open. She has slept an approximate total of 14 hours since Wednesday. This is not acceptable. I cannot live like this. I will not have Easy Mac thrown at me today.
Maybe calling her an jerk is a bit unfair. I mean, she definitely isn't feeling great, I would be grouchy, too. But I am just about at the end of my rope with the fit throwing. The problem is, I know it isn't going to get any better. The other day we were playing at the park where we encountered a small boy who was two months older than she was. This small boy, although cute, was a huge dick. He was going through the 'mine' phase, but was especially mean about it, and along with being a bad sharer he was also a crier, throwing a screaming fit when he didn't get his way.
"Just wait," his mother said to me. "You're next."
Like I said, I am a big softy. I never say anything. I never yell at her. But I am reaching the end of my patience and I have no idea what the right way to discipline her is because it all seems ineffective. The silence coming from her room is promising, though. Maybe all she needs is a little sleep. Sometimes that is all any of us need.
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