The Battle of the Wills, or better named, how many meltdowns can one 2 year old have?

I'm new to this. Not new to 2 year olds, but new to 2 year old girls. And fits. And tantrums. And meltdowns.

With my boys, it was simple. Quit your boobing or I'll kick ya in the butt. Plain and simple. There just wasn't the drama. Wait, I take that back. I am reminded of a certain video that we have of a young boy having a complete meltdown in the garage when he wasn't allowed to ride his bike anymore that day. Mmmmmm, Sissy belongs to that former young boy. Co-inky-dink? I think not, but that's beside the point.

I picked up the little darling Friday afternoon with the hopes of getting on the road in time to make it to Am Frk for a book signing with my favorite author. By the time I should have been there, I was not even on the freeway, so I bagged that plan and headed home with Sissy instead. Turns out that was a good decision.

Sissy has developed a raging case of independance. RAGING! She.will.do.it.herself. And if given an option, the answer is always, without doubt NO. Doesn't matter what it is, just NO. And then when you act on that answer, the wailing begins because she really meant something else. To say we have been waging a small war at my house for the past 36 hours would be an understatement.
The tally as of Friday night was: Sissy - 4
Mimi - 0

Saturday dawned WAY TOO EARLY!!! Even though I was quiet as a mouse, she 'felt' me missing in bed and decided that if I was up at 5:30am, she should be too. Everything Poppa tried to do to get her back to sleep failed. When I informed her I was leaving for work, well.....let's just say, I am surprised cops didn't show up at our door from neighborly complaints of screaming, whining and yelling from our house. Windows shut and all! Poor Poppa. Had to deal with her alone all of Saturday morning while I worked on our upgrade and dealt with the pager.
By the time I got home though, she had taken a nice long nap, and was cheerful and ready to play. Poppa was a good sport who played tent, and read books and had cereal. Tally on Saturday at Noon: Poppa - 1
Sissy - 0

We had plenty of errands to run all Saturday afternoon. Picture Macey's (ice cream cone); Wal-mart (McSlop shop); and Costco (polish dogs). Sissy doesn't want to ride in no stinkin cart! She wants to either run rampant through the aisles, or push the cart blindly while crashing into everyone and everything in her path.

She is easily distracted by shiny and non shiny objects alike. We finally found a way to get her to sit in the back of the cart, but just when I thought we had things under control, I looked in to see her opening all the boxes of stuff we had put there.

"Sissy, don't open the boxes, here play with this."
Whine, whine, grab boxes and continue opening while watching me to see what I am going to do.
I take the boxes away, she hits whatever is in her reach and whines, yells, cries some more.
I try more distraction. It works for about a nano-second before we're back to the conversation of NOT OPENING THE PACKAGES!
Tally at the end of afternoon errands: Sissy - 15
Mimi - 2 (and tired)

Saturday night was our ward swim party.I broke my hard and fast rule: "Never go swiming with work people or church people." But Sugar Daddy went in the pool with her last year, so it was only fair that I did this year.

Turned out to be a HIT! Who knew the girl could LOVE the pool?!!

The only problem we had was the fact that she refused to stay in the kiddie section. Instead, she saw the big kids going down the water slides, and jumping off the diving boards. What does she want to do? Really. No.lie.

When I finally relented on the diving boards, I was ever grateful to have another ward member there to help me. I'm a fairly strong swimmer, but treading water for 10 minutes while she braves the jump, and then having her pull me down while I am trying to get my head above water and to the side.....let's just say, it's a pity that the camera batteries were dead. That would have been awesome video.

We thought the first time off the diving board would be enough to scare her from it. Nope. She crawled off the side of the pool stood up, pointed at the board and said "Again". Okay, I think I can do it once more. She butted her way in line. Walked to the edge of the board and then jumped up and down on it like she had seen others do. Took her another few minutes and then we were drowning our way over to the side. Good.Times.

Some more slides and then it was clear that we were both exhausted so we headed home for warm jammies and snuggles in bed. This was the most excited and happy I have ever seen this little girl! She clearly LOVES the pool, and is quite fearless! I think a monthly pass for the rest of the summer is in order for us.....
Saturday night tally: Sissy and Mimi - dead even at 0

Sunday morning. I was awoken to the soft whispers of Sissy jabbering away at something and trying to crawl over me and Jordan to get out of bed. We got some cereal, I did my on call checklist, she watched some Wall-E and then.....DUN DUN DUN......It's.time.to.get.ready.for.church.

The girl hates baths and showers. Yeah go figure with her love of the pool and all. So we have a physical battle every single time. We gave up on the bath and now Sunday mornings, Sugar Daddy brings her into me while I shower, I soap her down, rinse her and he dries her and puts a diaper on. Then he is off to set up chairs and I am left to get myself and her out the door.

I always give her an option on clothes. I let her pick. So I go to her closet, get two dresses out, take them to her and let her choose. "Purpo" Okay, I start putting the purple one on and she begins to scream and wriggle to get away and hitting "No purpo, no purpo - pink!" Sorry baby, if I were to start putting the pink one on, you'd start yelling for the purpo. It's truly a wrestling match to get the dress on.

Then the combing of the hair. I don't do pigtails or ribbons or crap like that, could you imagine? It would be full fledged war! I just comb it pretty and let the natural curls hang. I head back to do my hair and what do you know, she has taken off her diaper and is sitting in her room trying to figure out how to get more powder on her butt. Niiiiiiice.

Tuffy has to be over to the church early, so he laughs and is outta there. I get a diaper back on her, her bag packed, my church bag packed, and head out the front door. She likes her blankies - her nigh nigh's. She has a yellow one (doesn't match anything, therefore only for home) and a pink one (acceptable). She wanted to take both to church. Sorry, sissy, just the pink. Meltdown. Freak out. Come-apart.

Load her in the stroller, with all the bags and start walking to church. So far, so good. She has forgotten about the yellow nigh nigh and is now enjoying the stroller ride.

Get to the church and I start hearing from the stroller seat. "No church. No cass (class-nursery)". No cass. No cass." "Yes sweety, were gonna go to class and see our friends, Sister R, play with toys, have a snack...."
"No cass, no sister, no toys, no snack."
I start naming her class friends by name and she starts telling me NO to each one of them. This is all while I am wrangling the stroller in, trying to be quiet as the meeting as started and gather our stuff to walk into the chapel.

"Okay sissy, hold my hand, let's go find Poppa." "No poppa. No cass. No. Mimi huuuuuuuggggggg." (meaning, me carry her) I hoist her up on my hip with like 5 other things in my hand and as I walk into the chapel, I feel my pager go off. Niiiiiice.

Does it get any better? I squeeze into the pew with Sugar Daddy and get her settled. We make it through the sacrament okay, see here, and then all hell breaks loose. She starts whining. I don't know about what. Just whining. More fruit snacks. I don't have anymore, they're all gone. More snacks. Sorry, they're all gone. MORE SNACKS!!

I pick her up and we head to "our" classroom. The place we go when she has to be taken out of the chapel. I'm not a believer in taking the kids out so they can run around the foyer. I would rather they DISLIKE having to be taken out.

We go into our room and I shut the door because at this point now, she has reached a whining pitch that is harmful to humans and animals alike. I sit her in the chair, remind her why we are there, and whoa nelly! She is off the chair yelling, hitting, slapping her hands, gritting her teeth, smacking anything within her reach, overturning chairs, throwing herself on the ground and crying like nobody's business.

WTH? I have never seen such a sight! I ask her if she is ready to calm down. That just sets her off more. So I sit silently watching the spectacle before my eyes, and shaking my head in disbelief. The pager goes off again. My phone is in the chapel with the rest of my stuff. I can't leave her, and I can't take her back so I hope that it's not critical. This goes on until the end of sacrament meeting. Yes folks, roughly 40 minutes. No.Lie.

I finally get her calmed enough to walk back into the chapel. Get her nigh nigh and start convincing her that she wants to go to class. No cass. No cass. Sure, we want to do class, it's fun! Head into the nursery room and she is clinging to my neck like a monkey to a vine. I ease her into her chair and start some puzzles while in the back of my head freaking out that I need to answer the page. Sugar Daddy comes in and takes over. The minute I walk away, the screaming starts up again in full force.

I call the user on their issue. Gonna need to go home and log in to fix it. Go back to nursery room, retrieve the hysterical Sissy and tell Sugar Daddy that this clearly is not worth it, I am OUTTA HERE! Load her up in the stroller, load all the bags, she is screaming for her sunglasses, I am not going to dig for them, and we wrangle our way out of the church and back home.

The stroller ride calms her down, she is quiet and I am seething. Why? She is two for crying out loud! Just cause I would like to go to my meetings, be with my YW and enjoy Sunday at church is no reason to be uptight with the toddler.

We get home. I empty the bags inside and once I go to pull Sissy out of the stroller, the serene calm girl who was just there has disappeared like a fart in your hand. Gone. And in her place is the screaming, whining, wrestling, hitting child who could make a hardened convict cry in frustration.

We make it in the house, I put her in her room with the explanation of why she is there and shut the door. If you could have heard the bangs, hits, and general commotion that was going on. She was completey destroying her room. Every book off the shelf, every movie flung across the room. Even things on the floor got picked up and hucked again for good measure.

She carried on and on for awhile. I would check every so often and ask if she would like to calm down. Those requests were met with something being thrown in my direction and me shutting the door again. Finally, FINALLY, I hear her whimper, "Mimi, huuuuugggggg". I open the door, ask if she is ready to calm down. "Okay" We get her nigh nigh's and head for my bed.

We put in Cars and watch for a few minutes and I just know she is going to fall asleep any second. I'm watching for the tell-tale sign, but just as she would close her eyes, she would sit up and shake her head and start talking or asking for something else. She was refusing to let her body relax and sleep.

I finally told her that she desperately needed a nap, and we were turning off the movie. She could sleep in Mimi's bed or she could sleep in her bed, so choose. Of course she chooses Mimi's but will she lay down and sleep? Nope. More whining, wriggling, fighting to stay awake. I picked her up, said, "Darling, you are going to sleep in your bed now. You're just playing in Mimi's so now you have to sleep in Sissy's bed."

I put her back in her room, shut the door and, you guessed it. I didn't think it possible for more destruction to happen, but destruction it did. Throwing, hitting, opening and slamming the door. All happening AGAIN for ANOTHER EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME. What.The.Crap??? Is this normal? I have NEVER seen such a thing in my life. Heard about it, yes, but first hand? Never. I'm almost a little scared if truth be known.

She calms down again, same old "Mimi huuuuuuuugggggg." I get her, her nigh nigh's, lay down once more and she is out. Within two minutes is fast asleep. Snoring asleep. The kind of sleep that you wish you could get every single night.

Her Mom came shortly later, Sissy woke up and after a quick ride with her Daddy on the four-wheeler,
headed home with Mommy.
Sunday afternoon tally: Mimi - 20 Sissy - 0

It's a good thing that I love her more than life itself. But NGL - it's gonna be a looooonngggggg terrible two cycle....... pray for me. And pray for Sissy.

PS - Her bedroom? I just shut the door. That is a project for another day.