The Dark Side

I love how people always look at me like "Oh no! WhatEVER could be wrong with her?" whenever they witness Sofia in a tantrum (and by "love" I mean it really freaking steams my windows).

Here is the fact: my daughter has a tendency to be one of those toddlers. Yup. Those. The kind that makes you walk out of a restaurant and smugly whisper "Our child will never be that way!" to your significant other. It's fine, go ahead and whisper. I wouldn't want to be in my shoes mid-tantrum either. Her acting out make me cringe, too. And I most certainly thought I would have it all under control when it was my turn, too.

Wrong. Wrong, and wrong (am I forgetting something? oh yeah!: WRONG). Sofia is a champion, a genius, a beauty, a clown and the kindest little Peanut this side of the Milky Way. But she can also be a royal pain in the a$$ ('s' with dollar signs because you can bet your bottom dollar on it).

This past week, the hair pulling started. Before that, it was the clichèd throwing-self-on-floor-kicking-and-screaming-at-random-times-of-day (diaper changes, getting dressed, any time the word "no" was pronounced) Even before that, it was the deliberate touching of the outlets. In uterus, it was the refusing to stay still for the sonogram (that one was extremely hard to discipline).

I don't even know what to do, to be honest - which is why the "WhatEVER could be wrong with her?" looks really get my goat. I mean, WTF? YES, she is a TODDLER, she throws TANTRUMS. Why the worried look? She's fine, *I'm* the unstable one right now! And how on earth am *I* supposed to know how to deal with this? I am, after all, only 16! (Wait, what, I'm not? Oh, c'mon!!!!) Time Outs are laughable (no, I mean, she literally laughs in my face). Yelling at her gets her just the attention she wants. Distracting her does work, but it takes a whole lot of constant effort and creativity. Ignoring her seems to be the best method right now...and that is so not how I saw myself mothering my child.

Anyhoo.

So, take this as a warning:

(1) If you don't have children yet, know that you've heard the phrase "terrible twos" kicked around a lot, but you have no actual idea of what it means, so beware,

and

(2) If you happen to be around while my daughter is trying to kill me because I tried to put shoes on her, please do not look at her with those pitying eyes and ask me if she's hungry. She's not - she's just almost 2.