terrible twos

Cruz has been exhausting, to say the least. We’ve been going through some sort of weird ‘I don’t want to sleep, eat, or be nice to ANYONE’ phase. Some call it the terrible two’s. I’m thinking we are headed for the terrible THREE’S as well.

*Sigh*

I’ve had several days with him in the past few weeks that I think were the hardest I’ve had YET as a mom. It all started because he had a nightmare about a month ago that REALLY freaked him out. So now he’s afraid to go to bed without his nightlight on, ALL his stuffed animals, music playing AND the door cracked open. It’s ok, I can handle the ‘afraid of the dark’ phase. But when you’re toddler is waking up in the middle of the night, when he hasn’t woken up in the middle of the night since he was EIGHT WEEKS OLD, it’s kinda hard. I can handle it for a few nights- I mean obviously. Kids wake up when they’re scared, sick, hungry etc. But I don’t even understand how people can continue to wake up in the middle of the night with their kids past the itty bitty infant stage, aside from the occasional waking up. It’s HARD. Plus, he can kind of reason with us, so he wouldn’t just wake up and cry it out in his crib. He’s not even in a crib. We have to lay with him, console him, get him water and try to talk him in (or fight with him) to go back to sleep. And to reassure him that he’s safe. And to make sure he’s comfortable and not afraid.

But what turned into waking up afraid, started becoming a habit. And he started waking up in the middle of the night because he was used to it.

NOOOOOOOO, was my response. I could only pray that this wasn’t going to be our new normal.

And it wasn’t. Things have gone back to somewhat normal. He’s eaten a TON over the past couple days, is taking good naps again, and isn’t waking up in the middle of the night anymore. Praise God. I haven’t gotten up that much with either of my kids since Rider was WEEKS old. And that was almost a year ago. Yikes.

His attitude has been ANOTHER. STORY. Wowzers.

People tried to prepare me for the attitude of a two-almost-three year old and I didn’t really think it would get THAT bad. But he’s never tested my patience as a HUMAN BEING more. I mean, I had a few days where I would BEGIN the morning in tears because he was just so difficult. I mean, crying, fussing, yelling, tantrums, hitting, talking back. There were lots and lots and lots of time outs in my house. And when you’re doing time outs and disciplining all day, it really can start to wear on you. When you feel like ALL you’re doing to disciplining, it’s very draining. But the alternative is a misbehaved child that grows into an adult that didn’t learn anything from his parents. So I stood my ground to him and tried to win the battles of his newfound stubbornness. But let me tell you, that was probably the hardest stretch I’ve gone through with him yet.

We’re hoping he’ll get it out of his system now and that he’ll be an awesome teenager. For real.

So I think the worst is behind us, at least of THAT attitude streak. He’s giving us a break for now. Which is good because we weren’t quite sure how much more we could take. I wish I had video of how truly hard he’s been. If you know my Cruz, you probably aren’t believing me about how hard it’s been. He’s always been so good! We couldn’t figure it out. BUT. Things have gotten better. We’ve changed a few things up for him and so I think that helped too.

Plus, I think he’s ready to potty train. And I think he knows it. But he’s too stubborn to try to do it. But I think it will help boost his confidence tremendously once he does that. We are going to California in two weeks and so I’ll begin the training once we are home.

Lord help us all, right?

So that’s where I’ve been. But we are on the up of a difficult month for Cruz. Obviously, he still has some attitude that we have to keep in check daily. HE’S TWO. But it’s tremendously better than it’s been. And I’m sleeping an interrupted sleep again. Which is good because I was for real about to go bonkers.