Hi all. Henry and I will spend much of the week talking about the wonderful weekend we had, but there is also some unpleasantness to discuss, so let's get that out of the way upfront, shall we? I've tried to shield you guys from this news until now, but it is now unavoidable: I have succumbed to the dreaded Terrible Twos. It's been going on for a few months now, where once a day I turn on a dime and have a full-on meltdown — often for no good reason — which leaves me inconsolable for up to an hour. Screaming, shrieking, going limp, flopping around violently, and even kicking and biting...it's all par for the course.
It's not pretty. Here's a watered-down version of what a typical tantrum is like. Dad got the camera because I was acting supercute in my closet, but without warning I turned nasty. On a scale of 1 to 10, this outburst is only a 4, so keep in mind that it often gets much worse than this:
The reason I bring this up now is that last week I kicked things into a new gear by completely forgetting how to get myself to sleep. The months and months of work that Dad spent transitioning me to falling asleep by myself with the door closed...all forgotten overnight. (For the record, we had four months of bliss, including six weeks in my big girl bed.) Now I start shrieking and crying in terror whenever he threatens to leave, and try to negotiate just "one more story" or "one more Barney song." And then one more after that, and so on. While I promise that I won't cry and I'll let him go outside after just "one more" story or song, that's never the case. And to make matters worse, I refuse to stay in bed, so if Dad does leave the room then I climb out out of bed and chase after him (did I mention I can open doors now?). It's all typical Terrible Two behavior, but that doesn't make it any easier for my parents, or for me.
Hand in hand with that, I've also gotten into the nightly habit of getting up around 4 am, freaking out that no one else is in the room with me, and instead of crying out for Mom or Dad like they always tell me to so, I silently get out of bed — wide awake — and start to wander around the second floor looking for them. That forces one of them to get in bed with me for the rest of the night.
Meanwhile, just as I've begun backsliding, Henry has started to routinely sleep for 6 hours or so between feedings at night: after his 8 pm feeding he's usually asleep until 2 or 3 am, which means that my seven-week-old brother is currently sleeping better than his 2-year-old sister! What's wrong with this picture?
Dad is hopeful that I'll get back on track before long, but for now, we're all resigned to tears and melodrama each night at bedtime.
Like I said up top, there's plenty of good news the rest of the week, I promise.
