Sometimes all you can do is laugh- whether it's appropriate or not

My daughter has a little cold. Sometimes feeling a little under the weather can set her through the roof emotionally. What an exciting evening we have had. Thank goodness my husband is home for this round of toddler tantrumania! The truth is it might have nothing to do with her cold and everything to do with the fact that baby brother is getting loads of attention for his every increasing walking skills. Whatever the causing factor the result is pure insanity...

Believe it or flippin' not, my dear daughter pulled the "water over baby brothers head" trick AGAIN in the bathtub- this time when papa ran to grab Phin's towel and she didn't realize mom was peeking in. She seemed surprised and crushed to immediately have to get out of the tub, leaving one to wonder how adept her manipulation skills may be. She is a very smart little girl; I find it very hard to believe that she was surprised at this.

Bedtime only continued to be a bundle of fun for the padres. What is becoming difficult, actually, is not laughing. Her emotions get so out of control it truly is ab-so-lute-ly absurd. At one point she had come into the living room for the second time just weeping about how hungry she was. We were refusing food because she had refused to eat dinner, but upon talking decided to give her a cheesestick but let her know that if she missed dinner any other night she'd go to bed with that hungry feeling in her stomach. We told her to remember how she felt right now because that is a feeling she'd sleep with if this happened again in the future. I don't even know if she got the lesson because not one but BOTH of her parents busted out laughing when she said in response (while still wimpering), "Yes, that is very serious because if you don't eat food you get really, really hungry and it is NOT GOOD."

Aye yaye yaye- I could share more details, but the bottom line is parenting is tough stuff. It is so tough in fact that my husband just looked at me and said, "how can it only be 8 o'clock?" The drama is so exhausting ten minutes seems like ten hours. I've been told that the todder years prepare you for adolescence and I'm sitting her going "oh boy!" I hope I learn a lot right now cuz I sure couldn't handle this if she had a deeper vocab arsenal and was the same size as I am.

P.S. Mom and Papa, if you are reading this- "I am really, really sorry for putting you through many nights such as this both at three and at sixteen."