"drama" should be her first name. last name? queen.

when i first had bella, i felt like i had entered the part of my life i was made for. infancy came so naturally. i never wavered,  never questioned. honestly, i wasn't as tired as i expected to be, though i wasn't running any marathons. it felt so right. 

look at that sweet face! that 5 month old was perfect.

then bella turned one.

she has always been active, doing everything early and then running with it to the extreme. but toddler hood presented a whole new ballgame. when bella was around 15 months, i started slipping. i forgot stuff. i was tired all of a sudden, even though she was finally sleeping 11 hours through the night. i couldn't handle everything. i started to break. i just felt overwhelmed and out of my element. 

i know baby, i'm crying too.

bella would get herself into trouble, but was too young, seemingly to effectively discipline with timeouts and reasoning (ever try to reason with a one year old? it simply feels ridiculous. like trying to reason with your toilet which, by the way, also is ridiculous.). she would run into the street with reckless abandon. diaper changes became nightmares, especially in public, where she would flail wildly and scream as though i were branding her. putting on clothes? forget it. i may as well have laid a searing hot chain link vest on her skin. and that's not the worst of it. everything was a fight-getting into her car seat, getting out of her car seat, getting into her stroller, getting out of her stroller. when i put her oatmeal in the microwave, she would crumple to the floor, weeping as though her heart was breaking. 90 seconds of pure agonizing hunger that she could not overcome and would surely lead to her death.

to say she was a drama queen is quite an understatement. 

at 18 months, i think we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. she listens a little better. i tell her no or to go do something and she actually does it, most of the time with a smile on her face. she brings me diapers and lays on the ground for a change. she picks out her clothes and actually lets me put them on, though now getting them off seems to key her in that it's almost bed time. 

i'm not naive enough to believe that the terrible toddler days are over. i know we still have plenty ahead of us. but i hope that they will be fewer and farther between. she is getting better at calmly communicating what she wants, although she forgets a lot and resorts to screaming. 

mostly though, i feel like i'm gaining back some control. i never understood how kids could grow up to be such sassy, bossy people. but i'm pretty sure that somewhere around 18 months, their parents probably had a nervous breakdown and never recovered. fortunately, i think my resolve is a little stronger than hers, and i will hopefully come out on the other side victorious. 

we shall see...........

i want my fat little angel back.

when bella was about 3 months old, my friend's baby was a toddler. i was visiting one day and witnessed her become exasperated, several times, with her rambunctious little one. she blew out a big breath and kind of slumped, defeated, into the ground. she sat up and looked at me and said, "she is driving me crazy today."

i looked to bella, all fat and sweet and stationary and found myself thinking, "i could never be that way with her.....she is so sweet."

famous last words.

skip to today. we're in target, and i am trying on a bathing suit (which is like, SO my favorite thing to do anyway) and bella is sitting in the stroller, screaming at the top of her lungs. as i fumble with the ties and try to keep myself from being exposed in the dressing room, she throws her water on the ground, but only after shaking out half of it onto her tray (and those are "supposed" to be leak proof. i'm beginning to believe that the only thing truly leak proof is an empty sippy). she screams again. throws her cow across the room. screams. throws. screams. 

this wasn't a tantrum, mind you. in between the screams, she was laughing. they were actually more like squeals than screams. 

"stopit." i said through clenched teeth.

scream.

"STOPITRIGHTNOW."

scream.

"you are going to be in somuchtrouble. STOPIT!!" 

SCREEEEAAAAM.

i start to sweat. her screams embarrass me and makes my blood boil. 

i take away all her toys and her sippy and put them in the bag. 

"WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAA"

i let out a deep breath, sit down and slump, defeated, into the bench. i look at bella. "you are driving me crazy today, you know that?" 

of course, we get home, and after lunch and some little einsteins, bella walks over to me, wraps her arms around my leg, pats me a few times, then she kisses my knee and says, "eyyyye duvvv yew". 

(this is terrible video quality, but you get the point)

my sister calls her a sour patch kid-first she's sour. then she's sweet. i'm pretty sure she was the inspiration behind their commercials.