This sweet little girl who can dress herself in cute little matching outfits she picks out all by herself and then go into the bathroom to brush her teeth, wash her hands and admire herself in the mirror…

…and who can entertain herself for a good hour on the kitchen floor by playing drums on the backsides of dog food bowls while singing her ABCs…

…and who can throw her clothes from her crib onto her changing table in the middle of the night with no one around…

…and who looks at me with those bright and shiny baby blues…

HAS MADE ME CRAZY. She has literally turned my head inside out and made my eyes hurt. I apologize to anyone out there who, in comparing their war stories with mine in the hopes of finding some comfort in another mother going through the same thing, asked me how we were handling the “terrible twos” only to have me (smugly) reply, “not in this house, we have a fantastically well-adjusted child, none of those tantrums here…”

Well today, I am sure, is the universe sending some karma my way for being so… naive. Because we have completely and wholly entered the dreaded terrible twos. Today was a living hell. A lot of clenched fists, a lot of tensed up bodies and a lot, I mean a lot, of screaming at the top of the lungs. And some of it was even by my two-year old. What the heck happened to my child – literally overnight? Nothing was right. She wouldn’t eat anything. Wouldn’t get dressed. Tore off her diapers. Wanted to go outside. Wanted back inside. Painted her feet with watercolors and then walked through my pristine kitchen just minutes after our cleaning lady left. Threw a wooden toy at my head. Twice. Ran over a dog with her wagon. Put a bowl of grapes in the toilet. Dumped half a tub of water out onto the floor only to laugh maniacally when I slipped and nearly cracked my head open on the side of the tub. Oh. My. God. When does this end?