I love you more today...

I want to meet the person who made it through the first two years BEFORE the adjective "terrible" came to mind. Personally, I believe I am trying to survive the " I'll show you lady - how about terrorizing, traumatic, testing all before 2" phase. I have said before how we breezed through the first year. Months 12-18 were mildly interesting. I am finding 18-24 months to be incredibly difficult.

One moment, I am confronted with a sweet, docile, toddling, babbling boy who is so in love with the world around him. The next day, I'm furiously googling for a therapist who will take patients who are babies 'cause I am CONVINCED he needs one! Yesterday was a bad day. He came home from Christmas festivities with his dad and his family. I had to get him out of bed well before 7 am, took about a 30 minute nap, and probably had a lot of excitement. By 3pm when we got home, I was left with a volatile child - frustrated with his own exhaustion and unable to control his emotions (not that he has much control of them under normal circumstances). At one point, he was throwing such a screaming tantrum, my neighbors came over to see if I was okay. My neighbor said she was worried from his crying he hurt himself (she knows about our bone disease) but she said when I answered the door - she could tell by the look on my face that HE was fine and I was the one suffering. When he finally went to bed (early, at 6:40pm) I collapsed on the couch, mentally and physically exhausted.

Its hard to let a day like that go, but you have to. You can't wake the next day, pissed at a toddler. You can't begin the day dreading a repeat performance. But its not easy. It seems bizarre that I consciously have to "let it go", but I do. Maybe its because I do this job alone, and no one else is here to bear the brunt of any tantrums or bad days - its always me. After a rough day, I just take a few minutes to be pissy about it, then its done. After a rough day, I always make it a point to find something new to love about him. Today, I had to find two things, because he really drove me crazy yesterday :-)

So, here it is - you screamed until your head nearly exploded and kicked your feet on the floor yesterday - but I love you more today because....

1) You knock on the wall and say "mama...mama..." in the morning when you wake up instead of crying to get out of your crib.

2) When we read together, you always snuggle your little head against mine in the exact same spot.

Love ya peanut!