My week from hell

Or maybe I should say my last three or four weeks from hell. Baby boy has been bossy, whiny, and pigheaded. And he refuses to listen to me. When he acts up and I try to talk to him, he laughs at me, swats at me, runs away, created even more havoc etc....Some days I feel like I'm the biggest failure of a mother in the world. Last night, for example. I was hosting my book club, so I put on a movie for the little guy thinking that if he wasn't asleep, at least he would be entertained enough to stay in bed. Wrong!

He repeatedly escaped from the bedroom and sneaked downstairs. In the process he caught his second wind and went completely wild (I'm talking swinging from the trees jungle wild) in front of my friends. Eventually his constant party crashing resulted in the book club ending early so that I could go tame my tiger. I was so embarrassed. Even after my guests left I couldn't get him settled. It was like he had just downed a 2 litre bottle of coca cola or something. I tried laying in the bed with him. Within seconds I became a human trampoline. So I left the room. Not 15 seconds later, the door was open again and baby boy was streaking back and forth down the hallway yelling and throwing stuff. My mounting frustration just added fuel to his fire. He knew he was "winning" and became even more obnoxious. So I decided enough was enough. I told him if he left the room again, I was going to lock the door. He didn't listen so I slapped on one of the baby proofing door nob covers. On my way out of the room I said, "Mommy told you if you opened the door again I was going to lock it. I guess you weren't listening."

After much wailing and a couple of visits from daddy, he finally fell asleep at around 10:45 (normally he's sleeping by 7:30) But I stayed away. I knew that if I went back in the room this was going to become a nightly struggle.

Tonight baby boy said, "Mommy, you leave the door open. I don't like the door locked." I said, "Okay, I'll leave the door open a crack. But if you leave the room I'm going to lock it again." Ten seconds later he opened the door and proceeded to climb down the stairs, while spitting over the side of the railing. So I put him back to bed and said, "Mommy is going to lock the door now. I told you not to leave the room and you didn't listen. (insert repeat of last night's wailing)

It's now after 10:00 and I can still hear him bumping around upstairs (but at least he's not wailing anymore).

Calgon, take me away!