Terrible Twos

So I'm calling it: we are officially in Full Blown Terrible Twos.

Paige had a rough day yesterday. She popped out of her bed when I opened her door happy as can be....but from there, it was all downhill. Meltdown when I changed her diaper. Meltdown when it was time to go downstairs and eat. Meltdown when we tried to give her food. HUGE meltdown when we tried to change her clothes and put on her shoes... We were (or I was, at least) seriously considering just sending her to daycare in her jammies and letting them deal with it she she was ready.

She did fine when I dropped her off at daycare, and they reported that she did well during the day. But she had eaten snack at 4:30pm, which meant she wasn't hungry for dinner. And that threw off the entire night's routine. She did ok until bathtime, but then began another round of meltdowns. She wanted to get into the water, and was even putting her leg over the edge to try to get into the bath herself. But once I helped her into the bathtub, she didn't want any part of it. In fact, she was getting upset when her toys got wet--I guess she figured that if she couldn't save herself, at least she could save them from the horrors of bathtime. Then, about half-way through the bath, Jen and I decided to trade so that I could go look for something in the basement. ... Paige flipped out--I literally could hear her screams reverberating through the pipes down in the basement! I'm sure our neighbors think we're torturing her...

Paige never really recovered after the bath. She would get happy for a few minutes, but virtually anything could set her off yet again. She drops a toy? Meltdown. I stand next to the bed when she's on it with Jen? Meltdown. She spills some applesauce on her leg when having her bedtime snack? Meltdown. She wants her bib off? Meltdown. So I take off the bib? Meltdown! BIB ON!!

Eventually, after watching her roll around sobbing on the floor for the umpteenth time, I just bypassed the entire nightly routine, took her upstairs, sang a song (while she screamed), and put her in bed. She protested, of course, but went down pretty quickly. I guess she was tired! I'm proud to say that we somehow managed to be patient with her throughout the whole evening...but as soon as she was asleep, we just collapsed. This parenting stuff can be freaking exhausting!!

Having said all that, she's usually a pretty good kid. She did great traveling last weekend, was a dream child when her grandparents visited the weekend before that, and was a real trooper on our trip to Wisconsin. And this morning, she was wonderful: happy as can be, gladly giving hugs to her mama, and even laughing as we ran out into the rain and into the car this morning. Yesterday, though....not so much. Fortunately, tonight can really only get better!