Testing testing...1...2...3

The other day Veggie read aloud a paragraph from his summer reading. It went something like this:

"The reason two year olds are so 'terrible' is because they are constantly testing boundaries...aka 'what will make Mom-mom go so insane that she starts beating herself with my rubber ducky? Oh, let's do that again...and again...and again...oh look, now she's slamming her head against a wall...hmmm, let's do that again....' Two year olds will continue to make these so-called 'experiments' to learn how others feel differently than they do towards certain actions...aka 'Mom-mom doesn't seem to like it when I play with the doggy's water bowl and suck the water off my fingers. Wow, she still doesn't like it. I wonder if she'll like it now? Hmmm...what does it mean when Mom-mom's face turns red and her eyes look like a dead fishy's and she's making lots of loud noises?'

He may not be a terrible two yet, but Punkin is already knee-deep in experimentation with mommy's frayed nerves. Experiment #57 for today: Does Mom-mom like to play the game "Flip-flop on the changing table?" The answer is decidedly "NO." An over-tired Punkin immediately began to protest when I laid him down on the changing table for a fresh, nap-time diaper. He soon switched from a pissed off wail to all out giggles as he repeatedly flung his body towards the edge of the table so I could catch him in midair and flip him back over. I told him to STOP and STAY STILL and he heard MORE and THAT WAS FUNNY. Pretty soon he was laughing hysterically and I was hanging by a finger nail from the end of my proverbial rope. When I finally pinned him down and gave him my best Mom-mom-is-very-serious stare, his giggles melted seamlessly into cries.

With the diaper finally secured, I unceremoniously plopped him on his bed. His crying had turned to deep, guttural wails and the flood gates had opened. After cleaning up the table, I followed him to the top of the stairs where he was now attempting to descend head-first towards Veggie, who had climbed halfway up in anticipation of an all-out Mama-Punkin meltdown. The wailing reached new levels of sorrow when Veggie refused to pick him up for fear of undermining my attempts at "discipline." After a few minutes we all headed to bed because, after all, the purpose was to get Punkin to take a nap now that he was 2 hours past due. Despite my attempts to reconcile, Punkin continued to cry and, just to rub it in, scrambled up over Veggie in an attempt to get as far away from me as possible. When he finally gave in and curled up to me, his usual nursing sounds punctuated by hiccuping and sniffling and the rapid, post-melt-down breathing, I put all of my heart into soothing him to sleep and decided perhaps I'd continue to let the experimentation persist just a little bit longer.

Sometimes I can be a real hardass, but most of the time I'm a total sucker.