Carrie seems to have inherited the “don’t bend in the middle” skill from her Uncle Dan. I spent, I kid you not, 10 minutes (although it seemed like 10 hours) trying to force/cajole/bribe/sweet-talk/trick/beg/etc. Carrie into sitting in her carseat after spending the morning at my grandparents’ house.
If this kind of thing is only going to get worse before it gets better, I don’t know how I’m going to survive it. It took every ounce of willpower and continual mental reminders that a) she’s just a toddler, b) I’m an adult, and c) she’s not really trying to drive me to an early grave to not totally lose my temper. Not that I would have done anything besides yell, but that wouldn’t have helped the situation all that much.
These toddlers are tricky little creatures. You finally think you’ve got the whole parenting thing down – you’ve figured out a routine that works for everyone, your baby is happy and healthy, people come up to you and tell you what a beautiful, well-behaved baby you have – and then. Then they start asserting their independence. And then you realize that you never really had any sort of mad parenting skillz, you just happened to get the model that sleeps well and is generally happy. And then turns into a raving lunatic toddler just when you finally feel confident about everything.