Who are you, and what have you done with my child?

Everyone always says that three is a much harder age than two, and I have always believed them. Two really wasn't that terrible for us. Not that it was easy - "easy" is not a word that has ever applied to my child, never never never. He was put on this earth to challenge me. But overall, I still think of him as a good kid. He is more often than not sweet, funny, affectionate, and quite lovable. It is one of my secret mom-fears, though, that maybe my undying love for him blinds me to how he really is, and that everyone else sees a different kid than I see (which of course is true, but I mean that everyone else sees problems that I don't and therefor can't fix). What if I have the bad kid and don't know it?!

Well, all fear is now laid to rest, because yesterday I KNEW for damn certain that I had the bad kid.* Omg, y'all, it was HORRIBLE. So horrible, I can't even speak proper English. We hosted a playgroup at our house, and my kid bullied, tantrumed, refused to share, and generally behaved like a total %&*#$. It was so bad that after our friends left, I just sat on the floor surrounded by a toy-splosion and cried and cried. And then I got a big box, filled it with all the toys he threw at other kids or broke in anger (which, yes, was more than a couple), and put the toys away in the garage. Ask me how well that went over with the tiny terrorist. Ask me if I care.

So I'm having a real fake-it-'til-I-make-it parenting moment now. My sweet two-year-old has become a really difficult three-year-old, and not just yesterday, although that was the worst. It's been a precipitous downhill tumble since his birthday. I swear on his birthday his inner monologue was, "Ok, I'm three now, time to see what Mom and Dad are made of." All of a sudden, I'm flying by the seat of my pants, trying to quickly adjust my parenting to what feels like a whole new kid.

Let's hope we both make it through the threes alive. I need a drink.


* Lest I appear melodramatic (which, btw, I TOTALLY AM), I know my kid isn't really universally bad, he is just behaving badly, yada yada. But dang, y'all, he's killing me.

p.s., Ignore the new look of my blog, I'm still playing with it. What I have now is just placeholder.