Bad Mommy

I know that I haven’t been typing much on here lately, but it has been busy. I have been stressed and at a lot of times feeling like a rotten mom. I am not sure if this is because I am moody because I am pregnant, or if it is the fact that Cailin has hit the “terrible twos” with so much force, I am not sure what has hit me. I feel like a bab mom for fussing at her as much as we have to and

Please tell me that it will get better.. for my sanity, her sanity, and well, for the cat’s sanity as well. There are some days that chris comes home and I feel so close to tears because it has been a harsh day.

Cailin loves the cat. She loves the cat so much that she wants to hold him all the time. She tries to pick him up, unfortunately for the cat, it is by the head or neck. This is not safe for the cat. She for some reason will try to hit the cat… with anything. One day for example, she had a hard plastic book, she was whacking the cat with this and Jessie just lay there hunched down as low as he could to cower away. I tell Cailin to stop. I try to tell her that it hurts Jesse and it isn’t nice to hit. She stops, I try to work on dinner. Chris is in another room doing computer repair. Five minutes later, I hear Cailin screeching with delight. She got into my pampered chef crate and found a bag full of lapel pins and was now hitting Jesse with this. I take the pins away, tell Cailin again that she can not hit. It is not an acceptable behavior, and it hurts Jesse. I sit her in the timeout chair. This is DEVISTATING to her. She screams. She tries to hit me because she is angry with me for moving her away from the cat. After making her sit (calmly) for a whole long minute and a half, she gets up. I play with her for a while and then I have to go back to dinner. Chris comes back upstairs and it testing one of his repairs. Not more than 5 minutes later, Cailin lets out a scream. It is one of those drop EVERYTHING you might think between her sobs, I look closely at her and notice four small puncture wounds on either side of her face. Small wounds that a cat claw could very easily made such as if Jesse ‘boxed’ Cailin’s face by hitting her on either side of her head with his front feet. I can’t yell at my cat if my daughter chases him around this house hitting him with various things. Apparently Jesse’s retaliation did NOTHING to teach Cailin. After dinner, Cailin had the cat cornered on the couch and was whacking him with the TV remote control. I took the remote, told Cailin that it hurt and and it was not acceptable. She was mad at me for this and started to cry. Reminding her of her cuts on her face does nothing to make her understand. We have tried tapping her hands, we have tried spanking, we have tried the timeout chair, and we have tried to reason with her. Nothing is getting through. This was just one day. We have tried stepping back and letting her see the consequences of beating on the cat, that doesn't do anything either.

Today, Cailin is sick. To steal words from another mommy friend, she becomes Captain Insomnia when she is sick. She took a 30 minute nap. She didn’t eat much of anything which it totally unlike my bottomless pit of a child. She was miserable as far as her attitude. I kept telling myself it was because she was sick. She got mad and tried to hit me when I took a cup of water away from her in the bathroom after she dumped ½ of it onto a carpeted floor. She got mad when I told her she couldn’t pick up the cat. She got mad when we wouldn’t let her drink daddy’s pop today. Daddy has strep and with her having it as many times as she did when she was less than a year, I didn’t want to take a chance of her getting it again. She was mad. Threw herself onto the floor and screamed. Last week she was in the kitchen and got mad at me for something. Before she threw herself onto the floor, she ran across the living room to the dogs bed, so she would have something softer to land on when she threw herself down. I had to laugh at this one.

With Cailin hitting and kicking as much as she has been, and her temper tantrums, there are somedays that I feel like all I do is correct her, or fuss at her for hitting, or kicking or whatever. Other days we have great days and laugh and giggle all day long.

Please tell me this stage will end soon and I will have my sweet loving little girl back soon!!!