Tot-i-tude!!

Baby girl has been getting out of control lately. The bad thing is that its just so damn funny! But you just can't laugh. She's found herself a serious case of tot-i-tude!! She's a little anger ball :) She will absolutely scream at little man when he takes a toy from her. And if I don't do something she wants or if I stop her from doing something she wants... she will just stand there and scream and shake her whole body!! She's such a bitty thing that it is so hilarious!! Her face will turn red and the whole bit.

She was out of sorts at my dr's apt the other day. She had fallen asleep in the car, so was a little on the sensitive/grouchy side. When I popped into the bathroom for the urine sample bit and left them in the stroller right outside the door (with the nurse) that just did it for her. She started crying and of course the nurse tried talking to her, which brought on louder wails... and then hysterics when other nurses/drs tried to talk to her... When we got into the room and I got them out of the stroller so they could play with the toys, everything was alright. Until the Dr walked in the room. Baby girl took one look at the dr, froze in her tracks and screamed at the top of her lungs; body shaking, face turning red and all. Where did my sweet baby girl go? I'm guessing since her dr's apt was just the previous week, she had those shots fresh in her mind and thought that's what was going on again.

The odd thing is that this new 'tude began right after she got her immunizations. Since then nap time and bedtime have been battles. The kind where I have to force her to lay in my lap amidst screams and hurling and flinging and back arching and leg kicking.

She's always been great at nap time, I can count on putting her in her playpen and her drifting off to sleep within 10 minutes or so. But the past week its been an hour later and she's not sleeping - she's getting all mad and stomping around. So I've had to give in and just put her to sleep.

I had been working on getting her to go to sleep on her own at night. I started laying her down in her playpen at bedtime, turning off the lights etc. Of course the first few nights she fussed and cried for a bit, but eventually went down. And it was to the point where we had it downpat and it was all working out good... then one night she started fussing just a little, I wasn't in the room so Tweenie picked her up! So there went 2-3 weeks of work. I realize that Tweenie probably didn't have a full understanding of what was going on. But in the weeks prior, every time the baby had stirred and Tweenie looked like she's was going to go get her, I told her not to, and explained that she needed to learn how to go to sleep on her own... Since then I just haven't had the energy to go through it all over again... it seems easier to just rock her to sleep. But then it's been such a battle for the past week that I'm thinking its time to start putting her down at night again.

She's been really awful at night. Once she sees that I'm ready to rock her to sleep she starts with the screaming. If she wont lay in my lap, I'll put her on my shoulder, but then she's pulling my hair and digging her toes into my thighs, I try to get her to lay down and she gets mad and starts flailing and flinging and kicking...

I know this would all be a lot easier had we not made the choice to co-sleep. Or would it have?? ;) It seems to be a pretty common issue (co-sleeping or not). I suppose things will get better once the weather gets warmer and we can use the kids' room again (its just too cold back there, and we've actually moved our bed into the second living room so we have one less room to heat).

Anyway, hopefully putting her down at night goes well... I just can't take much more of the nightly battles. It probably doesn't help that by 8pm I'm pretty much wiped myself! :)