Terrible Twos?

I don't want to write this blog entry. I finished up with my homework for today, and I realized I haven't written since last year. What I want is to crawl in bed and hide. What I should do is go for a jog, despite the snow on the ground and the 20 degree air.

I've been stressed beyond reason all semester. In January I wrote a draft that started with a statement about trying to be healthier this year. Now, it's the end of February and I've not had a soda in almost two months and I got a fitbit, which is helping me make sure I'm active enough ever day. I also saw a sleep specialist and had several blood tests done. Good news, I don't have a thyroid problem or any of a number of other things. The sleep specialist (who happens to also be a psychologist) says I probably don't have depression or any abnormal anxiety. I'm only a little low on vitamin D (it's a struggle not to be in the winter, I think). But that leaves me wondering why I'm so tired.

I'm keeping a sleep journal, and just keeping it makes me sleep better. But sometimes I still want to take a nap at about 3:30 or 4. Wait... that's about half an hour to an hour after my two-year-old gets up from nap.

You, like me, may have realized that this means I can't take a nap at 3:30 or 4, because I need to be available to him. You may also have wondered (as have I) whether these two things are, in fact, related. Do I crash because he's up and at it again for round two? I don't know. It has been a very long time since he wasn't on the starting blocks with recharged batteries at 3:00. The closest thing I have to a reasonably scientific comparison is that I don't crash at 3:30 or 4 on days when I am in class. As glad as I am of that, because my sleepiness doesn't affect my note-taking, I'm also frustrated because it does affect my parenting.

Today, Cubby and I played dump trucks with his stealthily stolen, clean cat litter on the front room carpet (because it is easier to control the mess on carpet than on hard wood). I wish I had taken pictures, but I felt like I couldn't walk away even for a second or the litter would be instantly moved somewhere much less manageable. To be clear, he would have played dump trucks with the cat litter whether I approved or not. In fact, he started all on his own, out of sight around a corner, by opening the litter container and taking fist fulls to fill his truck bed.

Does anyone else feel like their two-year-old suddenly stopped listening to them? Does anyone remember a period during which their toddler did and redid all the wrong things despite being disciplined? Time outs and talks be damned, Cubby's going to climb on the dog-food container and steal things off of the bar and the roll-top desk. Again and again, he will use tweezers to ream out my concealer stick when I'm not looking, even though it upsets me and earns him a toddler-sized lecture or a time out. I can't seem to get him to stop running to the bathroom to fill random toys with water.

I want to be reasonable. I want to let him explore. Curiosity should not be our enemy, but our inspiration. But I feel like I'm meeting a brick wall the 5th time I tell him to stop trying to steal the same thing from the bar in 10 minutes. A baby gate in the kitchen door, a locked bedroom door, a child lock on the bathroom cabinet, and I still feel like screaming about something at some point almost every day.

So does he. He rebels against my commands and reason. He shouts, "no!", drops to his butt and refuses to move, and smacks at me when I try to physically relocate him. He can't always be talked out of it, either. No matter the extent of my efforts, he does an incredible job just not paying attention when he so chooses.

Obviously, I've already raised my fair share of children through this age. Either I look back on my past with my daughters with rose-tinted glasses, or they weren't nearly this much trouble. I concede it really could be either. At least if it's the former, I have forgetting all about it to look forward to.

All of this considered, I go to bed each night thinking how amazing and beautiful all of my kids are, including my boisterous, brilliant, blithe little boy. Still... please let this be a phase.