Some days are just hard - some days you're cranky and I'm just not talking about myself here! Yesterday, I may have only had a few hours of sleep, but I was looking forward to the day because my mom was coming over and we were going to work on some crafty projects together (pictures to come!).
I got up and ready for the day - usually I wait until he's napping to head to the bathroom, but today I attempted it with him up. Bad idea.
He was in the vanity drawers, in the garbage, climbing on the toilet seat (and then the tank!) to get to the counter. Once he reached the counter he was grabbing at my make-up brushes, soap, basically anything he could get too. I tried handing him something to play with, but of course he wasn't interested in that. I kept putting him back down on the ground, but he just kept climbing up. Eventually he pushed the basket that I have on the counter with some of my lotions, etc in it and IT bumped a cute little bowl I've had since before I was married that I throw earrings, hair ties, bobby pins, etc in when I'm washing my face or showering. The bowl fell into the sink where it shattered.
When my mom arrived at my house the Little Guy was just going down for a nap. Perfect timing. He went to sleep easily and took about a 2 hour nap. Wonderful.
From the moment he got up from that nap, it was chaotic. I don't know how someone who just took a two hour nap and got a full night of sleep can wake up cranky, but he did. In hindsight, my mom said we probably should have given him a snack and he might have settled down a little, but we were in the middle of trying to finish up our project and keep him away from the iron, the pins, the sewing machine, the computer mouse ....
We are going through kind of a hard stage, I think. He's 19 months and understands when he's doing something wrong (like getting on the bathroom counter), but he's testing his boundaries. I don't feel like he would understand a time-out at the moment and nothing really seems to faze him punishment-wise. I feel like I follow him around the house saying "no!" all day long. Even if I try to find a different word to use or "pick my battles" I still feel like a broken record. He's started throwing little fits when he doesn't get his way and hitting something or throwing things when he's mad. Another fun little one - he spits on the floor when he doesn't like something you do or say.
Some days are just hard. Days like this make me feel like maybe I'm in a little over my head and that this little person is a lot smarter than me. It also makes me think about how if I can't figure this out now, I'm going to have real problems in the future (I think that may be a little premature, but ya know...) He seems like he's so strong-willed and I wonder if I'm going to be able to be strong enough to deal properly with that behavior, since I'm more passive than combative in most cases. I know that all parents probably have similar thoughts and I'm just as good of a parent as most other people, but these thoughts roam through my head nonetheless.
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