It's Already Been a Real Monday.

You know when you wake up and first thing it seems like you've already started off your day all wrong. That's kind of how this day has been. Already. And it's not even 7:30.

Grayson got up extra early this morning, and could not be convinced to go back to sleep for anything. So fine, fine, I'm up. I can deal with an early morning every now and then. He had soaked through his diaper, so I got up, changed him, and changed his clothes. I'll deal with the sheets later. We come into the kitchen, and he starts asking for water. Before I can get his cup out of the cabinet and water poured into it, he's nearly hysterical. "Wawa. Wawa. WAWA. WAWA! WAWA! WAWAAAA!!!". I mean seriously. It maybe took a total of 45 seconds.

Then, he decides he wants oatmeal, which literally takes like three minutes of preparation. Boil the water, stir it in, wait one minute, done. But apparently he is absolutely famished, and the waiting results in another near meltdown. We're talking laying on the kitchen floor, crying, kicking his legs. I ignore it, and he eventually stops. I sit him in his chair and give him some cheerios to pacify him, and he (begrudgingly) accepts.

I start feeding him the oatmeal a few minutes later, and everything is fine for approximately 30 seconds. He decides he would like to feed himself, thankyouverymuch, and rips the spoon out of my hand. I take it back, and this results in a full-on panic attack/major meltdown. Swinging his arms across his tray, cheerios flying across the room, kicking, face turning red, tears rolling down his cheeks, and finally, coughing out his mouthful of oatmeal. I've learned the best approach is to either softly talk to him and explain the situation and why he needs to calm down, or to ignore it for the moment. Since I'm already highly annoyed with this day, I ignore.

I clean up, and feed him two more bites. He looks a bit ashamed of himself, which I'm honestly somewhat happy about. One more bite, and he grabs the spoon again. At this point I give in. I'd rather clean up a huge mess than deal with it.

He finishes the oatmeal, and starts asking for "Mo. Mo. Mo. MOOOHHHHH!!!!!". I explain that we're out, he ate it all. Tears. Kicking. Grunting. Yelling. I offer yogurt. He shakes his head no. I take his bowl away. He kicks and screams for a minute, until I get the yogurt put on his tray.

He eats about five bites of yogurt, then says "Done!". Smiling, happy, cheerful little Grayson sitting in front of me, as if nothing ever happened. I get him down, clean him up, and it's over. Until he notices the oatmeal on his pants. Slightly panicked tears.

If this breakfast catastrophe is any indication, it should be a truly fabulous day. Life with a toddler is always exciting. You never really know what you're going to be dealing with from one moment to the next. It's what I imagine it would be like to live with a slightly manic drunk person. Lots of falling, crying, fits of rage, and moments of pure bliss and hilarity. As I'm finishing this up, he's begging for his "papi" (aka pacifier), which he's only allowed to have at nap time and bedtime. Since I told him no, he threw himself on the ground with a scream, stood back up, started banging on the trash can, and is now wandering around, moaning "Eeeeeeh, paaaapiiiii. Ooooooh, paaaaapiiiii. Paaaaaapiiiiiiii."

Wish me luck.