Eirinn has suddenly transformed from a rough and tumble tomboy into a prissy little diva.  Just since Monday.  It was a rapid transformation.

Her wardrobe once consisted of pants, shorts and t-shirts and a pair of brown Dora sneakers.  All necessary when spending the day dumping sand over your head, skidding around in the grass, and purposely letting ice cream cones drip down your shirt.  If people mistook her for a boy, she didn’t care.  And she was happy, so we were happy.

Now (2.5 days later), new things make her happy.  Dresses make her happy.  Pretty dresses, to be exact.  Today’s dress is navy blue, with a pink sash and a matching sun hat.  With crinoline.  Oh, and her finger and toe nails are painted a nice shade of fire engine red.  And if they get chipped, she requires a touch up.

In the evenings, she gets extremely upset, to the point of temper tantrum, when we have to change her out of her pretty dress into pj’s.  She doesn’t see why she can’t sleep in her pretty dress.  She’s willing to sacrifice a comfortable sleep for fashion.

In the mornings, she is so excited to pick out the day’s pretty dress.  We’re lucky she’s been given a hefty supply as gifts.  She’s good for a couple of weeks without having to re-wear any.  And when I dress her, she has to run to show Daddy how pretty she looks.  She says “Look Daddy!” and does a beautiful ballerina spin.

I suppose we’ve taken a few steps back in the progress of feminism.  Her happiness pivoting on how pretty she feels, and all.  But you know what?  It’s probably a phase.  Probably a very short phase.  And the important part is that she is happy.  And she is.

We’ll save the bra-burning for her next phase.

Things that were confiscated this weekend:

* lip balm

* dessert

* a bathing suit (temporarily)

* a visit to Granny’s

Reasons for the deprivation:

* spreading it on the walls

* not eating homemade chocolate chip pancakes (who on earth wouldn’t eat homemade chocolate chip pancakes!?!)

* throwing it on the floor and not picking it up

* not napping after insisting she needed to nap instead of eating lunch (turns out this was a ploy to not only avoid lunch, but to visit Granny earlier)

Cause of the misbehaviour:

* lack of sleep

* lack of sleep

* lack of sleep

* lack of sleep

Eirinn had a strong distaste for sleeping this weekend, in all its forms.  Thursday night through this morning contained ridiculously early mornings, missed naps, late nights and interrupted night sleep.  I have long believed that sleep begets sleep and, therefore, lack of sleep begets lack of sleep.  If a child (namely Eirinn) has a good night’s sleep, she will likely have a decent nap, which will also lead to another good night’s sleep, and so on and so forth.  And, of course, the opposite is true.  If she has one night of restless and interrupted sleep, she won’t nap as she should (not as long as usual or not at all), and we’re in for another dreadful night. 

This cycle is difficult to repair.  As adults, we can reason with our minds and tell them to just settle down and go to sleep already because we need rest to function.  As a toddler, when our bodies and minds tell us two different things, we usually don’t know that we can argue with them.  If we’re hyper and over-tired, we usually just obey our minds and run around the house, screaming like an angry little banshee, pulling books off the shelves, not to read but to throw, because “we want to”.  We don’t realize that if we would just calm our misbehaving limbs and get sufficient rest, we would be in better form when we wake and that we would be happier and, as a result, those around us would be happier (Hi, Eirinn!  This is your exhausted, impatient mother begging sobbing speaking).

When a child (namely Eirinn) doesn’t sleep well, many people say “Oh, I bet she’ll crash!”  This is partially true.  Eirinn often does “crash”, as in falls asleep with little fuss.  BUT.  She could be up frequently during the night.  Or she’ll be up before dawn.  Or she’ll sleep fabulously through the night and have to be woken in the morning, but then she won’t nap.  It’s a hard balance to keep and in order to maintain it it takes a lot of careful scheduling and strict adherence.  Neither of which is easy.

It began on Thursday night, as far as I can tell, when Eirinn was up from 10:30pm to 2:30am puking her guts out.  She soiled all of the sheets and blankets that fit her bed, so she and I slept the rest of the night on the couch downstairs.  Well, I use the word “sleep” very loosely, because I flopped around uncomfortably, trying not to crush her with my girth, and she “slept” until the wee hour of 5am when the sun came up and announced (to her, not me) that “It’s morning!  No more sleeping allowed!”  I completely don’t blame her for that night.  She was sick from some mystery bug or she ate something that didn’t agree with her.  She had no other symptoms and seemed fine by the next afternoon.  However, it seems to me that she has yet to recover, sleep-wise, which in turn means her attitude has suffered immensely.

And so here we are on Monday.  While my mom reports that she has been fairly well behaved thus far, this morning she was up at 5:45 for the day.  She threw a tantrum about having her nighttime diaper changed and being put into underwear (in her foggy morning stuper, she thought she was already in underwear and didn’t know why I was taking them off of her).  She threw a tantrum about getting dressed.  She threw a tantrum about the way we brush her teeth.  She threw a tantrum because she had thrown something on the floor and wouldn’t pick it up.  So I threw her in my mom’s door, football-style, ran like my butt was on fire back to my car, squealed and smoked the tires as I backed out, laughing at my mom’s certain impending misfortune.

___

* Of course I know you can’t give 2 year olds Ambien.  Don’t be silly.  One can only dream…

Can you spot the difference between these two statements? 

#1 - “If you eat some chili, you can have another piece of toast.”

#2 - “If you eat some chili, you can have another piece of toast.”

Do they look the same to you?  They look identical to me.  I could not for the life of me figure out why the first statement resulted in many no’s and fidgeting and furrowed brows, while the other one resulted in a nearly empty chili bowl.

That is, until I figured out the difference.  Statement #1 - spoken by me.  Statement #2 - spoken by my mom. 

For the past few weeks, Eirinn seems to have lost some respect for me.  It’s extremely upsetting.  She still loves me, I know this for sure.  She’s still affectionate and wants to be with me more than most and asks me to play with her quite often.  But I don’t think she respects me in any sort of authoritative role. 

Getting her dressed either in the morning or at night consistently results in a tantrum.  Not uncommon for a toddler, I know, but she only behaves this way when I’m the one doing the dressing.  She’s fine with Anonymous Husband, even if I’m in the same room watching.  Coming home from daycare is usually an hour long ordeal.  Eating dinner is often torture until one of us caves.

And this part almost shames me to admit.  She has hit me.  Several times.  I’m almost positive that she has never hit another adult, but she has hit me.  She apologizes and offers to give me a big hug, but that doesn’t change the fact that she felt that it was alright to do so.

I don’t know what has happened with the dynamic of our relationship.  Is this normal with children and their mothers?  I’m no slouch.  I’m not a pushover.  I’ve tried nearly everything in the spectrum of discipline.  I’ve tried reasoning and explaining why behaviour is inappropriate.  I’ve tried the finger wagging and stern lecture (keeping it brief and in toddler language, of course).  I’ve tried time outs.  I’ve tried taking away a toy or something she cherishes.  I’ve tried crying and telling her that I’m sad because she hurt me or my feelings or because she wasn’t behaving herself.  I’ve even smacked her hand after she hit me, trying to get her to understand that hitting hurts and we shouldn’t hit anyone and they won’t hit us.  Nothing seems to consistently work.

AH has explained to me that she probably behaves this way because she’s most comfortable with me.   This may be true (it makes sense), but I never wanted parenting to feel like this.  I was always of the mindset that parents should be parents while their children are still children.  Parents are not meant to be exclusively friends with their children.  If you’re able to find some sort of balance between the two, then great.  Booyah for you.  But as a goal, you should focus on parenting and let the friendship aspect fall into place.

Keep in mind, this behaviour of Eirinn’s isn’t constant.  Most days she is her usual wonderful self with just a blip or two.  She is doing fabulously with her potty non-training and the bed transitioning is getting better and better every day (sleeping through the night, putting herself to sleep, waking up very early).  She is more affectionate than she has ever been, wanting to give great big hugs and kisses.  And she is as funny and charming and crazy-crazy as ever.  She’s everyones favourite kid. 

She’s just becoming more independent and therefore more defiant and this seems to be focused mainly towards me.

Perhaps it’s a reaction towards the new baby coming.  We’ve talked about the baby since I’ve been abnormally huge, but we’ve assumed thus far that she didn’t really understand.  But maybe she does.  And maybe this change in behaviour is a reaction towards that.

Or maybe she’s just two.  And perhaps if it’s because she’s just two she’ll grow out of it quickly and not become a permanent right-holy terror. 

One can only hope.