I love my child... I love my child...

I have now survived 8 days of staying at home with Valerie while Rich is off biodesigning, which is a new experience for me, being accustomed to working full time. It's been interesting, but again confirms that SAHM life is not for me. I have nothing but respect and hero worship for those who excel at staying home with their young children. Especially terrible two-year-olds. It is tough and exhausting, and for me, not the most rewarding.

I haven't hated every minute. We have had some fun. I get to steal as many kisses as I want all day long, and I get to witness a lot of serious cuteness, which happens more on good days. My favorite thing she does is knock on the wall and sing this part from "Do you want to build a snowman": "Elsa!  I know you're in there! People are asking where you've been! They say have courage, and I'm trying to, I'm right out here for you, please let me in!" Some of the words are off but it's really the cutest thing I've ever seen. When she sees me watching her do it, she yells, "NO MOM!!! DON'T LOOK!" So I look away and she'll do it again. I really hope I can catch it on video while it lasts.

She also loves flipping through her books and reading them out loud to herself, which cracks me up. She recites certain phrases she's memorized, which may or may not correspond to the book she's holding. Some I've heard several times are "a most careful count," from the Lorax; "the greatest, toughest girl" from My Name is Not Isabella; "bring me a pumpkin" from Cinderella; and amazingly long sections from Daisy's Birthday Party, which is one of her top favorites right now, along with Sleeping Ugly, The Awesome Book, The Color Book with Mr. Paint Pig, Egg in the Hole book, and every version of Cinderella she can get her hands on.

I don't know any other toddlers as well as I know my own, and I have no doubt there is much worse behavior out there, but boy does she know how to push my buttons. First there is the mess. The constant, widespread, infuriating scattering of every toy all over the house, not even because she's playing with everything, but because she dumps out every container of toys/hair accessories/stuffed animals/blankets from her bed/books/crayons on the floor, leaves it and goes on to the next thing. I could deal with the mess if she would later help clean it up. But asking this child to lift a finger to put anything away is like commanding your cat to prepare you a gourmet four-course meal. It will just look at you, laugh on the inside, if not loudly in your face, and walk away. It's less stress for all parties if you just do it yourself, but SOMEDAY you want that cat to be able to cook for you, dammit, so you suffer the torment of walking it through every step so it begins to learn.

Okay, I'm not sure how well that analogy is working, but in real life, I had to count to 3 several times, put Valerie in time-out twice, threaten to sit on her to hold her in time-out, tell her to clean up no fewer than seven billion times, walk away and take breaths to maintain sanity, tell her exactly where to put each toy, sing the Barney cleanup song, and ultimately do most of the cleanup myself. It was kind of like how I imagine running that Death Valley ultra marathon might be. And this is what it's like getting her to help clean up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME so far.

In a similar category is leaving the house. Before we leave the house, we need to do things like eat breakfast, get dressed, put on socks and shoes, brush and style the hair, fill our purse with random toys to bring in the car, put on a jacket even if it's pushing 80 degrees outside... I think you can see where this is going. Every trivial item becomes a battle some days. We nearly reached a help-clean-up level of combat this morning over putting her hair in a ponytail. When she sees me getting frustrated, it's like she's winning points. She laughs and it becomes a game in finding my limit.

Honestly, she is not always this bad. Some days leaving the house is really not a problem. Most of the time she'll let us fix her hair, and put on her socks and shoes when we ask. I really think she saves most of her worst behavior for when she's alone with me. There's something so comfortable about Mom that makes her feel like she can unleash all her inner demons. I swear she doesn't act like this for other people. Certainly not at daycare!

Today had some particularly rough moments. So, this afternoon while she was hanging out in her room not at all napping, I started brushing up my résumé and beginning the job search.  Nothing gets me feeling more enthusiasm for corporate America than white-knuckling through another long day with an anti-napping toddler!