hell hath no fury

Like a three year-old who doesn't get her way.

My sweet loving little imp disappeared this weekend, and in her place was a demon spawn who wrecked havoc whenever I was around. We seemed to have entered the dreaded 'ole daughter-mommy war, and if this weekend was any taste of what was to come I am dreading the teen years.

We started off nicely enough with a morning at home gardening together on Saturday morning. I dropped Alice off at my brother and SIL's in the afternoon so I could get some peak hours in working by myself in the backyard. Matt was working all day, so that probably contributed to the mother-of-all meltdowns that we experienced later on. We try and spend good family time together on the weekends, but Matt has been working a lot of Saturdays and I think she is missing him.

Anyway, when I picked her up at my brother and SIL's later she went apeshit. And I MEAN apeshit people. She jumped on beds, hid behind bookcases, ran away from me while we were up on the rooftop of their condo, pushed all the buttons on the elevator. All things that alone are general preschool fun, but doing them all together in a crazy sucession of "no no NOOOOOOOO" made for a crazy spiral. We actually had to leave my brother and SIL's place before we had even eaten the lovely dinner they had prepared because Alice was just out of control. I tried everything I could think of - getting down to her level, asking her to stop, telling her why she had to stop, distracting her, removing her to a quieter place, and finally losing my cool and saying "fine! we are outta here!" In the car on the way home she kicked my seat the entire way and then threw herself on the ground in front of our house and yelled "you are NOT my best friend." Back at ya, missy.

Needless to say we had a calm down and a long talk and tears and the whole bit. And after we both fell asleep after all the drama, she awoke the next day only to have a repeat performance.

Her anger is definitely directed at me, and I know KNOW know that it's because I'm the one she wants to test most. Last night trying to get her up the stairs for a bath and book resulted into biting and spitting at me. Like a mad dog. And while I try to remind myself that she is only 3 years old I find myself responding to her sometimes as if she is a mature adult. I have to remember that this is another phase, one where she is trying to exert her independence from me and testing out our boundaries around each other. But goddamn. Can we please skip over this part?