Is there a medication that cures the "Toddler Crazies"?

Xanax.

I can't find any horns... yet.

It's not for me.  However, it seems very tempting.  Previously I have written about the terrible ones, twos and threes, but I had no idea that the twos would be giving me this much trouble this time around!  My first child was such an easy baby/toddler/preschooler/kindergartener.  My second child (who has earned his own post before as well) was difficult, but not in the same way as my current toddler, H.  This is WAAAAAY different!  I'm not sure if it is mostly attention-seeking due to having a baby brother to contend with or if it is something much more sinister that is causing his unruly behavior.

In a typical days, these are the things that H does to drive me nuts:

• Steals our phones.
• Moves furniture around so he can reach things he shouldn't.
• Dumps out all the toys.
• Throws all the diapers around the living room.
• Pulls his brother's clothes out of his drawers.
• Torments the cats.
• Jumps on furniture.
• Screams when you don't move right away when he wants something.
• Screams when he doesn't like what's on TV.
• Throws things at his older brother's head.
• Pushes buttons on the TV/DVD player/Wii/Cable box.
• Pulls the blankets of his and his brother's beds.
• Cries for no reason when he wakes up from his nap.
• Stands by me and screams when I'm trying to get his brother to go to sleep.

I'm sure I could think of more, but it is past my bedtime.  I know in comparison to some other evil toddlers, his antics don't seem that drastic-- and they're not when you sit back and think about it.  But I don't have time to sit back and think about it because I am constantly having to monitor his every move, put him in time out or tell him he's being ridiculous.  The boy has no off switch!  I remind myself constantly that he's two and that's why he is the way he is.  He can't communicate his thoughts and feelings, which makes it difficult for us to communicate in any way except for him to be ornery and me to be exasperated. 

But it's tough.  Some days by the time my husband gets home I don't even ask if it's okay to hide in the bedroom, I just do it.  My nerves are shot, my brain is exhausted and my patience has packed up and moved to Siberia.  I find myself at war with my conscience on a daily basis.  I want a break from him and contemplate often sending him to some type of daycare a couple times a week just so I can have some peace.  But then the conscience part of me worries that something bad could happen to him at daycare.  I have yet to have a positive daycare experience in a facility-run one, and finding an in-home provider is tough as well because it would just be part-time and I'm very picky.

My conscience has won up until this point.  I don't want to regret "sending him away," but at the same time I feel as though it isn't fair to my other children or my husband to be so stressed out that I have to hide out for hours until I can find some peace. 

I also occasionally try to figure out if I have done something differently with him than I did with the first two, but I don't think I have.  I often joke that he is the spawn of Satan, a demon child or the devil, but my husband gets annoyed when I say those things out loud (so shhhhh, don't tell him.)  And coincidentally, he was the only child I had to have a c-section with and it was because he was upside down.  Should that have been a sign?  Has anyone done research on breech babies and toddler miscreants?  If not, alert Harvard and have them get right on it.

The weekends are my salvation.  My husband always lets me sleep in (which I milk as long as possible) and then there's an unwritten rule that he is responsible for H and I will gladly be responsible for the other 3, the housework, anything and everything, as long as I get a break from H.  I worry I might resent him as he gets older just because of the hell he put me through as a toddler. 

BUT, he does have a cute personality, he's funny and he is SO SMART.  I truly believe (and I desperately want to believe) that there is hope that he won't become a juvenile delinquent and then go on to seek asylum in Russia when the federal government decides he is a threat to national security.  Only time will tell, but until then... is there a medication to keep me from going crazy?

How uncanny can you be?

I have three scenarios to present to you.  Now, if you are going to share a story that can one up me, feel free, but make sure it applies to YOU, not your uncle's cousin's grandma's sister's grandaughter's friend.  That would be cheating.

So I have three friends who I have known for varying amounts of times and met in different ways.  We each have coincidental commonalities amongst our children.  Which one do you think is the most uncanny?  And let me apologize to said friends because I guarantee I'm going to be off on some ages or birth months.

Friend A:  Her children are a step-son (I'm a horrible person for not knowing his age, but I wanna say he's in middle school), a 6 year old son, a 2 year old son and a 1 year old son.  Her 6 year old's middle is the same as MY 6 year old's middle name and it is not a common name.  Her 2 year old is a month or two younger than my 2 year old and her 1 year old is a few months older than my baby.  We both kept wanting girls and ended up getting boys.

Friend Sa:  Her children are a step-son (I think he's 9), a 6 year old son, a 2 year old son and an almost 1 year old son.  Her 6 year old was born 6 days after MY 6 year old.  Her 2 year old was born a month before mine and her almost 1 year old was born 3 months before my baby.  She also kept wanting a girl and ended up with all boys.  PLUS, she and I have birthdays the same month of the same year and our wedding anniversaries are a day apart.

Friend St:  Her children are a daughter that is in high school, a 9 year old girl, 7 year old boy and almost 2 year old girl.  Now, aside from the age similarities with three of them, what is really cool in my mind is that her youngest's birthday is the same as MY birthday (which also happens to be my mother's birthday) and my oldest's birthday is the same as HER birthday.  Also, her 9 year old daughter and my 8 year old daughter have the same middle name with the same unique spelling.

So, there you have it.  Which is the most uncanny?  Oh, and to those who are like, "you said you all wanted girls, what horrible human beings!  You should be lucky to have a child at all."  Go F yourselves, that's not the point of this post.

That other four-letter "F" word

I couldn't even begin to create a list of all my pet peeves... most are trivial, some are grammar nazi issues, others revolve around people.  Today I'd like to address a pet peeve that has irked me the majority of my life-- that four letter word that starts with an F and ends with a T and is synonymous with passing gas.

It's a good word, look it up!

I think the word is crude.  I think discussing it when you are an adult is uncouth.  I don't like when people laugh about it... it's impolite and immature.  Of course those who disagree with me chalk it up to being a bodily function and "what's the big deal?"  Welllllll...

According to "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior (Freshly Updated)"
by Judith Martin:

Unacceptable Noises. Miss Manners does not plan to mention them, chiefly because they are unmentionable, but you all know who you are. What they are. At any rate, there are noises that are acknowledged by neither the noisemaker nor the noise recipient, because socially they do not exist.

I was raised in a household where I think we were taught very proper etiquette when it came to normal mannerisms.  No one ever purposely passed gas and if someone did, it was unheard of to laugh about because it just seems "trashy."

I know, I know, I'm gonna catch a lot of flack (behind my back, of course) by people who were raised differently and feel highly insulted by this, but this is my blog, and I'm free to voice my opinion.  When I think about people making f**t jokes I picture immature college guys that will never grow up or two toothed hillbillies that shower in the river.

We raise our kids this way too.  Belching is also one of those things that people should not giggle about, but I think those are harder to make quiet.   Society is going down the toilet as it is, let's add a little class to it whenever we can.