ahh, finally...

[smileswhf]

One day when my child was 20 months old, she started screaming every day. I thought, "Ah, this must be the terrible twos. I can handle this." Then she turned 2 and she kept screaming every day. Then she turned 3 and she kept screaming every day. I started asking the parents around me why no one ever told me about the screaming. I mean, I so would never have had a kid if anyone had told me about the screaming. She even upped her game to include the classic throwing herself on the floor and beating her fists. It was about 2.5 years into this when I woke up and realized that it wasn't children. It was just her. This might be the state of my life for years to come: get screamed at over breakfast, go to work and get told my work is not living up to standards, go pick my kid up and get screamed at, cook dinner (she likes to eat so there is usually a respite over dinner) and then get screamed at again trying to get her to bed. This was depressing to me. Then she turned 4 and the screaming continued. Her personal best was 5 temper tantrums before 9am on a saturday. On.A.Saturday! I understand those women who get up one day, pack a suitcase and leave. The screaming is like getting stabbed in the brain with an ice pick over and over and over. Then last month while J was at a conference in France, she woke up and there was no screaming. She rubbed a couple of brain cells together and it was over. 3 years exactly. Now I look at my little girl with the lellow blonde hair and big brown eyes and her little angelic face and I feel like I missed out on something. And I did miss out on something. I missed out on enjoying being a parent because every day, week after week after week of screaming and fighting with her to do the simplest things. It's a pity she didn't stop before she broke her mother in half. Or maybe that was the goal....