Toddler for sale?

"This kid might not make it to three". That was my post on Facebook on Wednesday night. Dear - Lord! If any of you recall, for the first 25.5 months of his life, (aside from the reflux issues) I had the perfect kid. The one who slept from the day he was born, the one who never cried in public, the one who would go to anyone.

Now, I think my 'perfect' child has been switched with the spawn of Satan. If he doesn't get what he wants, he cries, if he gets what he wants, he cries. He just stands there and cries. and cries. and cries. I'm not even sure he knows why he's crying sometimes. The worst part of it all is the fact that you cannot reason with a two year old. He was in the pool and wanted to go swimming, he was holding a ball and wanted to play catch, he wanted to sit at his picnic table and eat dinner (when he was standing at the picnic table with the food and a sippy cup already on the table!). Yet, he. just. cried. 30 minutes later, he was in his crib crying, while we ate a semi-peaceful dinner for 15 minutes, got him up, spoon fed him his fettucini alfredo, read a book and put him right back into the crib where he (thankfully) fell asleep.

It was nice of everyone on Facebook to offer to take him. Of course, they were all either in Columbus or Cincinnati, (2 and 4 hours away, respectively). I know that I should probably just put him to bed earlier, but with dinner, brushing teeth, sitting on the potty, bath, book, PJ's - it's nearly impossible to get him down before 8:20. Especially since we don't usually finish dinner until around 7:30-7:45. The picture below shows last night, me reading him a book. This is a part of our nightly routine. The earlier we get to bed, the more books we read. It's a terrible picture of me, but the actual reason for me putting that picture down is what book we're actually reading.

A funny thing happened last night. Ares was getting his diaper changed, and he was whining, fussing, crying and rolling all over the place. It was only tantrum #3 for the 45 minutes I was home, but I was still overly frustrated, and I wanted him to settle down so we could change him and get his PJ's on...

... so I slapped his tush. Not hard. He didn't cry, but he did let me finish changing him. I asked him to pick a book out to read, and after searching his bookshelf for 5 minutes, he comes out with this book, and says "Mommy, hitting is bad." - What a little shit. This kid is SMART! Too smart for his own good, that's for sure. Well, perhaps he's just too smart for MY own good!

The VP of my department told me that 3 is bad too, 4 is worse, and that they coined the 5 year old stage the "Fucking Fives". Yay.