It has happened before, and it will happen again. At least I’ve figured it out enough to have predicted it this time.  My kids have switched places.

Daniel and I had a pretty horrendous July.  It persisted straight through our two weeks in Chicago and Wisconsin, placing it easily in the top two most challenging trips we’ve taken. He was a pill pretty much every day.  He was defiant, he was rude.  He treated every suggestion of a potty break as a personal affront, and had more poop accidents than I care to remember.  He napped well under 50% of the time. And though I had family around, I was without M, so ultimately EVERYTHING came down to me. He had his lovely moments too, of course, but there were so many struggles in every day, that’s the overriding memory for me. To call it exhausting and infuriating would be an understatement.

All the while, Rebecca did her very best to compensate for her brother’s behavior.  Sunshine and light. Extra easy-going. Sometimes she’d even be kind enough to point it out for me, in case I didn’t notice.  “Mommy, I’m doing good listening!”

But I knew the day would eventually come.  Daniel would, someday, come down from this peak of intensity.  Which is not to say he would fundamentally change his personality, just tone down the extremes a notch or two (or fifteen).  And so he did, almost immediately after his birthday.  Suddenly we had several good days in a row. Less of the life-and-death struggle that marked every naptime for the previous six weeks. Dramatically fewer random acts of defiance. Cooperation and manners. Much improvement in attitude and performance in potty training.  General sweetness and snuggles and smooches.  Whew.

Naturally, that means it’s Rebecca’s turn to lose her mind.

My get-along girl is now that much bossier, that much more aggressive.  She’s sneaky and sassy.  She has thrown a few epic tantrums, the likes of which we haven’t seen from her in quite some time.  She’s clingier, she’s whinier.  She lost her mind when the (familiar and beloved) babysitter came so M and I could go to a wedding.  I’ve even noticed her doing a very three-and-a-half thing that I read about in Your Three-Year-Old: a sudden drop in confidence in her physical abilities.  Some of it is amusingly dramatic – she collapses on a heap in the floor and is suddenly incapable of standing back up.  The trials and tribulations of putting on her shoes can send her to the pit of despair.  And while she used to scurry up the climbing wall at our favorite indoor playspace in no time flat, she now gets three steps up and then comes back down.

Without the live-in experiment of twins, as well as reading up on this age and talking to those who have gone before me, I’m not sure I would realize both of these sets of behaviors were coming from the same developmental place.  Daniel’s defiance does not have a direct equivalent in Rebecca’s behaviors, they express this unsettled age in different ways.

This will pass, it always does. It will come again, too. If I’ve learned anything in my last three years of parenting, it’s that all the phases are temporary.  Enjoy the good ones while you can, put your head down and get through the tough ones.  They all pass.

No one can agree on who Rebecca looks like.  M swears she looks like me, but no one else quite sees it.  My mom says she looks like my sister-in-law. Ultimately, there’s no strong resemblance to any one person in looks.

But in personality, I think she’s an awful lot like me as a kid.

There’s the funny similarities, like the fact that all she wants to do in the water is float. Or that she can often be found spinning in a circle and singing to herself.  She seems to be like me from a parenting perspective, too - pretty easy, big into rules, kind of sensitive to perceived slights or sadness.

We’re at the beginning of our annual Midwestern pilgrimage right now. Hauling our stuff all over Illinois and Wisconsin to visit various family members. This weekend was the yearly family reunion for my dad’s side, and it was tons of fun as always.  A pool, lots of young kids, silly games, junk food at every turn. Good times. Unfortunately, M had to stay home since he really didn’t have enough vacation days to join us.

Yesterday, in the middle of the Reunion Insanity, Rebecca woke up from her nap crying hysterically.  I asked what was wrong, and she choked out, “I miss my daddy!” Oh, the heartbreaking wails.  Eventually she calmed down enough that we could call M and she could talk to him.  And that was when I heard the most striking echo of myself as a kid, through buckets of tears and loud sobs and a thick throat:

“I just want to go home.”

Oh, how many times I said that as a child.  I was an intense homebody. My mom would drop me off to play at a friend’s house, and the other mother would call an hour later, saying I was ready to be picked up.  The first week of first grade was constant tears.  My first time away at camp, age 10, was an epic disaster of daily letters, begging to come home.  Even my freshman year of college, I racked up enormous phone bills (OK, much of which was to my boyfriend at the time), and almost didn’t go back after Fall and Winter breaks. I transferred at the end of the year, and ended up going to school two miles from home.  The fact that I have now lived a full time zone away for more than 10 years is nothing short of a miracle, but I think even that is nearing its end.

So, when I heard Rebecca all but begging her Daddy to let her go home (again today), my heart broke. Not just because we’ll be here for almost two more weeks and I certainly want her to have a good time, but because I remembered so clearly what that felt like. That intense homesickness, that desperate need to be near the things and the people that I missed.

I feel badly that I’ve passed that trait on to my child.  It’s hard to feel that sad, and it took away from my ability to enjoy things like Girl Scout camp, and for sure kept me from making a real attempt to take advantage of my first year of college (even though transferring was ultimately the best decision and my second school was a perfect fit).

Thankfully, I know it gets better. I was able to go away to camp a few years later and I liked it. I traveled to Europe and had a great time. I moved to Boston and fell in love and started a family.

And, hey, I’m 31 years old and want to live closer to my mommy. So maybe that’s not all bad.

But in the meantime, I will try to be patient with her sadness and remember that feeling in the pit of my stomach, of just wishing I could be back home.  I will try to help her enjoy the times when we’re away, and not just count down the days until we go back.  And I’ll make sure she gets to talk to Daddy every single night.

Seriously, forget about that whole “we’re Jewish” thing.  I need to schedule an exorcism ASAP to deal with the demon that has inhabited my son.

I almost don’t know where to start.  I feel like my blood pressure is through the roof, my heart is racing, and I’m liable to fall down in a heap at any moment.  Such is parenting Daniel at age 2 years, 11 months.

When he is good, he is very very good.  He is curious and inquisitive, always asking how something works, what we’re going to do next, and “what kind of thing” is his version of “why” in the realm of never-ending toddler questioning. He is incredibly charming. If he is so inclined, he can work a room like nobody’s business.  We’ve been out for lunch and had several waitresses fawning over him and people coming over from other tables to compliment him.  A barista at our local Starbucks is positively in love with him, and has started insisting I bring him in on their birthday next month.  He has delightful manners, lots of spontaneous “Mama, may I pweese have X?” and casual “oh, sanks” when you give him something.  He is funny and silly and bright and highly verbal and has a memory like a steel trap.

And sometimes I would like to clamp him in a steel trap.

Because the other side of Daniel is a complete psychopath.  There are scarcely words to describe it.  Defiant and contrary doesn’t even begin. When he’s in a mood, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say he spends about 50% of his day in this kind of mood, he is nothing short of a nightmare.  Picking fights over everything, from what to have for breakfast to putting the toilet paper in the toilet. I’m not kidding.  Sometimes it’s a pursed face, a pout, angry eyebrows. Silence. Daring me.  I ask him to do something. He covers his eyes with his hands, face still angry.  I count to 1. Staring me down.  I count to 2. A shrieked “NO!” and a stomped foot. That’s three, into time out.

My kids have always handled time outs pretty well.  Very often I could just send them and they’d walk there themselves. They almost never got out before I told them to.  Sometimes there was crying, but not always.

Now?  Now, with Daniel, it’s another way to test me.  “NO! I DON’T WANT A TIME OUT!” He gets up. I put him back. He stays there, but lashes out. Hits anything in reach – the chair, the door, a book.  Screams and yells at the top of his lungs. Sometimes just an angry “AAHH!”  Sometimes a positively furious “NO!”

I ignore it.  If he’s in his time out and not destroying anything or hurting anyone, I ignore it because I know he just wants to further engage me in another fight.  The screaming continues well after the timer beeps and I (as quietly and calmly as I possibly can) tell him he may get down. He keeps right on screaming.

And then, as quickly as the nastiness begins, the psycho switch flips and he walks out. “Mommy, what are you making?”, he asks with wonder and curiosity and reverence.  I tell him I’m making lunch.  “Oohh.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”  Yep.  “Ooohhh.  Sank you, Mommy.”

Literally one sentence, one second to the next.  He flips from having a complete temper tantrum to back to his normal self.  I have emotional whiplash from the back and forth.  Because it goes back in the other direction just as fast. Sometimes I know what is likely to set him off (naptime, OMFG), and sometimes it’s a complete shock.

We were in Starbucks this morning, I gave the kids a warning that it was almost time to go home.  Daniel responds with, “oh, OK! I’m ready to go now.”  Tosses his chocolate milk in the trash, gleefully shouts “see you later!” to the entire staff, and practically skips out the door.  I ask him to hold my hand while we cross the parking lot, and BAM.  “I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME! I DON’T WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND!  WAAAAAHHHHH!”  Bucks in the carseat so I can’t get the seat belt on. Shouts at his sister.  Get home, and he refuses to take the seat belt OFF.  More crying. Another disastrous time out.  Another freaky switch back to normal behavior.  Back and forth and back and forth, all day long.

There are people who meet him and think I must be crazy.  What a delightful child you have! He’s so sweet! So funny! So smart! So charming! But I know.  I know it can, and will, turn on a dime.

I am completely, emotionally, mentally, and physically drained.  I try and try not to lose my temper. I try to stay calm, stay quiet, not engage with the fight-picking and power struggles.  I try to be consistent and predictable.  I try not to hold a grudge from the awful times and to encourage the good ones instead of launching into a tirade about how awful he was behaving and why it’s driving me over the edge. When he flips back to nice-Daniel, I try to act happy and pile on the good attention and compliment his nice manners.

It almost goes without saying that sometimes I do a whole lot better than others.  Sometimes I don’t do very well at all.  Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I slam a door.  More than I’d really care to admit. It’s not pretty.  But I try.

I’m at a loss, to be honest.  I’m not sure where to go next. I don’t know how to get rid of this insanely bipolar behavior.  If there’s an effective punishment to be had, I’m not exactly sure what it is. (Did I mention he’s become a retaliatory urinator? Yes, intentional peeing when he’s extra pissed off and I send him to his room.)  I’m not sure how to reward the good behavior enough for it to have an effect but without going overboard.  But it’s awful. I re-read this post and know that I’m not even doing justice to the insanity.  M and I sometimes just stare at each other with our mouths open, wondering what the hell just happened.

I know, from reading blogs of some of you moms with slightly older kids and talking to friends, that this is pretty well within the realm of “normal” behavior for this age.  I know that the testing limits is developmentally appropriate.  But, alas, that knowledge does not stop me from wanting to smack the taste out of his mouth, and we are NOT a physical-discipline family.  I just want more time with my sweet, sweet boy who is so funny and so smart and so delightful.  But even when that sweet boy appears, I’m still on edge. Waiting for the other shoe to drop (or for it to be picked up and thrown on the floor in a fit of rebellion).

SERENITY, NOW!

We had a rough morning. Daniel seemed to sleep a little better last night (after a complete meltdown at bedtime and resulting night terror about two hours later), but still woke up in a horrid mood and had two time-outs before even going downstairs. I could have told him we were having ice cream for breakfast and he would have pitched a fit.  He pulled it together for swim class, but again protested going down for nap.  Thankfully, FINALLY, he took one today. Three cheers for the new blackout shade.

Went up to get him from nap, he took a solid 2+ hours.  Walk in, strange smell. Diaper in hand.

“Daniel, why did you take off your diaper?”

“Because I had to pee.”

“Where did you pee?”

“In my bed.”

Indeed. The whole bed was completely soaked. The diaper was dry as a bone.

What could I even do? The pee was cold, the incident had passed. The morning, the week, had been so intensely frustrating and draining, I had nothing left in the tank. If I got upset about this, it was clear I was going to straight-up flip my lid, possibly burst into tears.  So I complimented him on knowing that he needed to pee, and suggested that the next time he felt that way, he could just go to the bathroom across the hall.  I mean, at least he recognized he needed to go?

Good lord.

Forgive me, those of you I’m about to offend. But I’m going to take a moment and be grateful that I don’t have two boys.  As it is, with my comparatively mellow boy/girl pairing, it’s a miracle we’ve made it this far without major injury. [knock on wood, turn around three times and spit]

My kids have gotten increasingly physical in their play in the last couple of months. Grabbing and pushing in the name of toy-stealing aside, even their made-up games have started to involve a lot more wrestling and tackling than I might have guessed.

Just the other day, we were at a local indoor playspace.  The “game” they came up with was that Rebecca would go first down the (rather fast) slide, and dramatically tumble and roll when she hit the bottom. Usually with an incredibly fake “ouch!”

She’d then giggle uncontrollably, lying on the floor, calling “help, Daniel, help!” And so he flies down the slide and rolls right on top of her.

If you’ve been picking up on her personality over the last two years, I somehow think the last thing you’re going to do right now is feel sorry for her and berate her “bigger” brother for picking on her. HA!  You know she’s the aggressor 95 times out of 100.  Daniel might be slightly more likely to get carried away as the game snowballs on itself, but not by much.  She’s definitely the one who is more likely to put him in a choke hold and wrestle him to the ground.

Oh, there is a broken something coming. I can feel it.  In the meantime, I’m going to take deep breaths and focus on the calmer moments, like a shared snack in between games of full-tackle Ring Around the Rosie.  Ohm…

That’s right, I’ve gotten back on the horse that so violently threw me off a few months ago.  I’m taking another pass at potty-training Daniel.

The recap, in case I never quite finished the story here, is that we did a “boot camp” with him about two weeks after Rebecca’s.  He did quite well for the first week.  Minor accidents, but plenty of success. Wohoo.  And then a week passed, and it all fell apart.  It was like he simply stopped caring, or stopped paying attention.  He’d have a success or two in the morning, and then it would be all downhill the rest of the day.  After more than a week of that nonsense, I decided it wasn’t worth the stress/power-struggle and put him in Pull-Ups full-time.  Mainly because they’re easier for the times that he actually did want to use the potty.  Which, as it turned out, he did not.  Zero interest.  And when there’s absolutely NO potty usage, Pull-Ups are just a very expensive and messy pain in my ass.  So we went back to diapers.

Anyways, some time has passed, and changing the diaper of a nearly-three-year-old is getting rather tiresome.

I asked Daniel yesterday what he would think about wearing big-boy underwear and using the potty.  Previous questioning along this line has been dismissed with an uninterested “no.”  Yesterday: “Oh! Yes! I would be very happy!”  Um, OK.  And up he ran to the dresser to choose his big-boy underwear.

And, so, we have begun again.  For the moment, I am not going the boot camp route.  We’ll do underwear when we’re at home, diapers when we go out and when he sleeps.  I don’t trust him in the slightest to tell me that he wants to go, so I’ve been setting the timer on my phone, and he knows that when it “boings,” it’s time for a potty break.  In a day and a half of being part-time in underwear, we have had no pee accidents and one poop accident.  That didn’t phase him in the slightest. He did not feel the need to mention it when it happened (on M’s watch, I might add), nor did he seem like he was trying to hide it in any way.

That’s the biggest potty-training obstacle for Daniel & me.  As excited as he is to wear big-boy underwear, and he is quite excited, he just doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the accidents. With Rebecca, her accidents got her quite distressed.  Daniel? Meh, whatever.

At Target today, we picked out some special Lightning McQueen stickers that I plan on using for a special potty sticker chart. He’s a big fan of ice cream, so I’m thinking 10 stickers and he can get a treat from the ice cream truck or something.  Just in case, I got the 2-lb bag of M&Ms, too. [As a side note, Rebecca wanted her own Tinkerbell stickers. Trying to think of a sticker-chart-worthy behavior for her, since she's already got potty training in the bag, but is clearly perturbed at the sudden focus on Daniel.]

On tomorrow’s shopping list – a few bottles of wine for Mommy.

He won’t go to college in diapers, right?

I’m having one of those times when I feel like I work at an insane asylum for very small people. I’ve been trying to write a post about it for three days, but can’t manage it. And, so, I present three video clips that remind me of my life right now, and why my darling boy is driving me up a fricking wall.

1. He has switched from calling me Mommy to calling me Mama. Turns out this is actually the more annoying version. Especially when you say it once every 15 seconds. “Mama! Mama? Hey, Mama?”

2. He never, ever stops talking. This is largely very cute, and his memory for detail is alarmingly good. But he has to tell you EVERY detail. And he’s 2.5, so sometimes it takes about 5 minutes to get a full sentence out.

3. We haven’t hit the “why” phase yet (and, believe me, I am grateful), but he is constantly asking questions. Weirdly obvious ones, sometimes, as though asking questions is a new way to tell a story. “Mama, where are we going?” “Where are we going after the gym?” “What are we going to do after we leave the post office?” “Mama, where are those guys going?” “Mama, what is that lady doing?” “Mama, are you peeing?” “Mama, do you have a placemat?” “Mama, are you eating dinner?”

Again, like many (most?) things this age, it is simultaneously adorable and enough to make you rip your hair out.

(This video is hilarious in its entirety, but skip to 7min for the bit I’m thinking of. Language is not really suitable for work, or for little pitchers with big ears.)

If I was picking nicknames based on their current quirks, these are the ones I’d choose.

Daniel is obsessed with coins right now. Doesn’t much matter if they’re pennies or quarters, he simply must have at least two in his possession at all times.  He holds them, he balances them on his fingers or his knees, he sticks them in between the tines of a fork (or the crack in the windowsill, or the floor heating grate, etc.).  I think, if given the choice, he would swim in a pool of coins like Scrooge McDuck.

The down-side, of course, is that he puts them down, drops them, or otherwise loses/misplaces them.  So, roughly 900 times per day, I hear “Mama, where’s my co-oines?” “Mama, I need more co-oines!”  I fricking HATE coins right now.  It’s all he talks about. He throws them, he plays with them instead of eating his meals. Yes, I take them away at times like that. But oy, it’s constant.  I’d find it a lot cuter if he wasn’t asking me to find them every six minutes.

[As a random aside, both kids have started calling me "Mama" in the last few weeks, and are sometimes calling M "dad."  We've been "mommy" and "daddy" since they started talking. I have no idea where this came from.]

Otherwise, though, I feel like Daniel’s behavior is moderating a little bit. Or, maybe my reaction to it is changing? A huge thanks to all of you for your input on the potty situation.  We had a successful weekend in underwear for him, and then a disastrous Monday morning. During which, I made my peace with putting him back in Pull-Ups. Clearly, now is just not the time for him, and I’m doing my best to back off.  And I think we’re both less stressed for it.

Rebecca, for her own little quirk, feels compelled to sing along with everything. EVERYTHING.  TV theme songs, bedtime songs, songs on CD in the car.  This is not a brand new behavior. She’s long shown a love for singing. But it has definitely ramped up, and I’ve noticed an interesting twist.  While it’s not unusual for a two-year-old to want to hear the same thing over and over again, Rebecca seems to be doing it with a clear purpose: she’s trying to memorize it.  She will request the same song several times in a row, and attempt to sing more of it each time.  She can now sing most of the first half of the Barenaked Ladies’ Snacktime album.  Particular favorites are Polliwog in a Bog (“I want the froggie song!”) and Popcorn, but she really loves to sing the entire album. As a big BNL fan, I’m so proud…

The funniest part of this, for me, is that it is exactly something that I used to do.  As a kid and a teenager, I would listen to the same song over and over and over again. I’d mentally memorize every little tone.  I’d pause and rewind and write down the lyrics or try to transpose the chords with my barely passable guitar skills.  Who knew I had managed to pass along that kind of obsession to my daughter at such a young age.  Of course, my mom talks about listening to her Joni Mitchell record over and over again, so maybe it’s just straight genetics.

Right. So. Remember when I said my kids were potty trained? Well…

Rebecca is doing great. A superstar. I can think of only one accident in the last week. She can hold it, she tells me when she needs to go, she isn’t freaking out about poop the way some kids do, and she is perfectly willing to use the travel potty when we’re out and about. No problemo.

And then, there’s Daniel.  Oh, Daniel.

Sigh.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know we’ve had a very, very difficult week.  Daniel has gotten hit HARD by the terrible-two-and-a-halfs.  Much like when he went through this phase back in October, he feels the need to be contrary AT ALL TIMES.  He pitches a fit that he doesn’t want breakfast.  Then he pitches a fit that he wants oatmeal. And raisins. NO RAISINS! I WANT RAISINS! NOT ON THAT SIDE OF THE PLACEMAT!  And this is all before 8:30am.  It goes on all day long.  If I ask him something or offer him something, he has to say no. I go to put it away, and he demands whatever he just declined. He claims to not want to play outside, not want to go to a friend’s house, not want to go to Starbucks. Riiight.  Sure ya don’t, buddy.

Worst of all, this has spilled over into potty training.  He did so well the first week.  Not perfect, but really well. He’d have a tiny accident (like small enough that a change of undies was not really necessary), stop himself, ask to use the potty, and finish. Brilliant.  No longer.

For one thing, he seems to have tuned out from listening to his body.  Now he has a full-on accident, and THEN tells me he needs to use the potty. When we’re at home, when we’re out. All over the damn place.  And, of course, if I ask him if he needs to go or ask him to sit and try before we leave the house… well, you can guess what the response is. “I don’t wanna! I don’t need to use the potty!”  Five minutes later… new pants. Again.  And did I mention he’s a notorious incomplete-emptier? The kid goes about a tablespoon at a time. Ugh.

The kicker is that sometimes he does well. Sometimes he asks to use the potty before he goes in his pants. Sometimes he poops in the potty.  He is very capable.  But much of the day, he tunes out and/or refuses all suggestion.  And those who have been through this will understand how it simply brought me to tears on Thursday night. Exhausted. Defeated. Broken. Sobbing.

So, friends, where do we go from here on the potty front?  Re-boot-camp?  New incentives? Back off and put on Pull-Ups for my own sanity?  As a general rule, I want to be as consistent as possible and don’t like going “backwards.” But I would also like to not end up in the looney bin.

And as for the behavior – pick my battles and ride it out? Be extra strict and nip the attitude in the bud? Start drinking heavily?

Two weeks after the big potty boot camp weekend, and Rebecca is doing very well. She is asking, unprompted, to use the potty with great regularity, and it’s almost never a false alarm.  I can think of only one single pee accident this week.  She is even willingly pooping on the potty, though that seems to be the main accident culprit.  Alas, it’s a work in progress, and it’s going well.  We are back to our normal level of outings, and she is more than willing to use the travel potty when we’re out of the house.

Enter, the twin dynamic.

Daniel has always wanted to do whatever Becca was doing (sometimes much to her chagrin, and leading to many fights over toys, etc.).  Once he realized she was getting an M&M for successful potty usage, he wanted in.  As it turns out, the kid can pretty much pee on command for candy.  I suspect that skill will come in handy.

On the flipside, Daniel has most certainly noticed that any time Becca mentions anything to do with “potty,” we drop everything for her.  By necessity, she is getting a lot of attention and a lot of praise.  And I think it’s driving him bonkers.

Oh my lord, has he been whiny this week.  Whiny and clingy, with a huge helping of attitude and sass.  On Monday, I thought it was just that he was punishing me for leaving for the weekend.  But the more I think about it, combined with a whole lot of extra “pick me up” and “can I sit on your lap?” and clearly the kid is feeling starved for attention.

I feel bad, of course.  Especially when home by myself with both kids during the day, it’s next to impossible to give quality one-on-one time to either of them.  And, since we’re still in a somewhat fragile state of potty-trained-ness, I do have to pay pretty close attention to Rebecca.  When you add in that her behavior has been much better than his, you can do the math on who’s getting the lion’s share of positive attention from mom this week.

Well, buddy, all that is about to change.  This weekend, it’s your turn.  You and me, one-on-one, all weekend long.  All the attention, all the praise I’ve got, is going to you.  Potty training boot camp, take 2.

I’m pretty exhausted just in anticipation, but I have reasonably high hopes that at least the pee-on-command bit will come in handy.  And here’s to hoping all of that attention will help to turn his behavior around.  Either we’re going to have a great weekend, or I’m going to want to kill him.