The Paradoxical 3 year old

There are days and there are days.

This is one of those days. I'll just preface this by saying that I'm sick, all the kids are sick. Everyone's cranky.

Sofia woke up in a foul mood and within 5 minutes was crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor, hysterically crying for no apparent reason. She then demanded I "feed" her her waffles like a baby. When I said no and went to feed the twins (they were crying hysterically at the same time, wanting their bottles), she took it to a whole-new-level. She laid on the floor screaming and I rousted Steve and told him to go in there and do something.

That just made things 100 times worse as apparently, she only wanted me. A half hour later, I had her in my arms, trying to calm her down as she was shaking and gasping, as one does after a marathon tantrum. I kept telling her to take deep breaths, but this only heightened her anger.

All of this before 8 a.m. and it went downhill from there.

Without getting into much more detail, I'll just say that I could do nothing right in my daughter's eyes today, yet she wanted nothing to do with anyone but me. It was quite paradoxical, actually.

We also made a park run which turned out to be a unmitigated disaster. I had visions of pushing the twins on the swings while Sofia would play happily in the sandbox....not.so.much. Within 5 minutes, she insisted on taking off her shoes (had a boo boo) and basically shreaked whenever I paid attention to the twins and not her. Clearly, she did not appreciate their interloping on her territory, running through the park like a crazed, barefoot banshee, complete with snot running down her nose, to complete the effect. Let's just say I know I wasn't just imagining the looks of pity and disdain I was receiving.

Was going to try and have the twins sleep in their cribs in the nursery tonight, but as most everything else, that didn't go as planned either. With David crying for about half an hour and my 12 hour Sudafed quickly wearing off, I made the decision to try another day.

So, the twins will not officially be sleeping in the nursery by their first birthday. But you know what? I'm ok with that.