Nightmare Child

I'm going insane. 


My sweet, happy, easy-going (for the most part) 2.5 year old has turned into...well...a monster. Harsh maybe, but disgustingly true.

If we go more than 20 minutes without a major meltdown, I consider myself lucky. Everything is the end of the world lately, and "No!" is his new favorite answer. Meal times are a battle (anything besides mac n cheese is rejected), sleeping is a battle (crying hysterically because he threw his burp rag off the bed, or he's cold, or there's an imaginary booger in his nose), and being out in public is the ultimate battle.

Today was an especially rough day because I was home alone with both kids. Wesley needs about an hour of my time every four-ish hours, and the rest of his time is spent sleeping or staring into space. He's insanely low-key. Of course, though, during that hour, Aiden decides he neeeeds everything under the sun and suddenly has lost all ability to do anything himself. Leave it to my toddler to make me feel insanely guilty when I have to say "I'm sorry but I'm feeding Wes right now. You'll have to wait a minute."
- Cue meltdown from Aiden. -

I thought it was a brilliant idea when I cooked Aiden his lunch, sat him down to eat, and then proceeded to feed Wes. Multi-tasking is what good moms are made of, after all. It wasn't very long into the meal when I heard sounds of food hitting the floor behind me. I promptly put Wes down (in the middle of his bottle) and walked over to find pieces of corndog lying everywhere. When I told Aiden that he was getting his plate taken away, he decided to send his entire plate flying in retaliation.

Seriously, I wanted to cry.

I'm at a loss here. I don't know if this is because of Wes's arrival, or if it's just him being a toddler. I don't know if I need to give him more love and understanding, or more discipline. I don't know what to do when we're in the middle of Target and he's screaming his head off and I need to finish what I came there to do. This is the part of parenting that I clearly suck at.

In other news...

Ants have infested our house and we're struggling to find where and why they're getting in. What's most bothersome is that they're the worst in Aiden's room. We bought ant poison to set out and sprayed around the windows, so hopefully that works. I'm thoroughly disgusted, though, and Tom isn't exactly being pro-active about the situation because "it's not like they're killer ants or something."



I have another long day of taking care of Aiden and Wes ahead of me tomorrow. I hate that I'm dreading it, but I am. On broken sleep, I just seem to be completely lacking the ability to deal with the situation effectively, and I honestly feel like such a failure because of it. I really hope he gives me a break tomorrow.