Push Me on the Mood Swing...set

Miss O has been so belligerent of late, it'd be funny if it weren't so, I don't know, loud? She vacillates between yelling, laughing and bawling and she seems as unsettled by it as we are. Is she too young to be going through "the change"?

Por ejemplo, the other day, she pulled out this marble-run building thing they got for Xmas that they've never played with, and she decided to build something. Unfortunately, she was trying to stack stuff up on the rug and it kept toppling over 'cuz it was... on the fucking rug! I attempted to go in there a couple of times to suggest that she might want to build on the nice, smooth walnut floors, but she gave me the "go fuck yourself" look and I skee-daddled. Of course, she kept asking for help after that, so I'd come back in to tell her that it wasn't going to work on the rug and then she'd tell me to fuck off again. This continued until her lid flipped and the tears started a-flowin'.

Eventually, she decided, on her own of course, to move everything onto the wood floors, and what do you know, it worked. She finally allowed me to help out, and we ended up building a pretty awesome setup:



The end of the run was her idea:



So, all worked out fairly well in that scenario. Tonight, however, was a whole 'nother egg. We went upstairs after dinner to get ready for bed. I honestly cannot remember what made her start crying, aside from the fact that she's nuts. But there she sat, on her bed, bawling her ass off. I sat down next to her, she climbed on my lap and I rocked her a little bit, asking her what was going on. She kept crying and then said, "You don't treat me very well when I'm crying. You're not a very good parent." Excuse me?! What wall did that bounce off of?!

Of course, I couldn't let that one just go by unchallenged, so I asked her to give me an example of how I wasn't a very good parent. She said I yelled at her whenever she cried. I said, "You mean like right now, while I'm rocking you in my lap and speaking to you in hushed tones?"

Silence.

Then more crying. Then she said "You won't read me a story!" I replied, "Actually, about 10 minutes ago, I said that once you stopped crying and we brushed your teeth, we could read a book."

Silence. Strike two.

Then more crying, but her heart really wasn't in it at this point. Then she said this great thing. She said, "I feel guilty." I laughed to myself and asked, "What about?" She said, "I feel guilty because you're not very nice to me when I cry." Well, there's nothing cuter to me than a child using a word incorrectly, so all was instantly forgiven. I blew her nose, wiped her tears, and we went in to brush her teeth. After that, everything was just peachy.

Oh, and I just remembered why she started crying. She had walked up to Mr. Z, who was peacefully reading a book, and she punched him in the back, twice. I told her that she can't go around punching people in the back and that she had to say she was sorry and sit in her room for a couple of minutes as a time-out. So yeah, that's what started it.

Although she probably would've started crying if, instead, I had rewarded her punches with a giant box of ice cream sundaes, Groovy Girls and puppies. She's just fucking on edge, that one.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's a good thing she's adorable.