Bring on another baby!!

That's a joke, of course.

The recent stretch of angelic behavior from her has come to an end. It's been about a week now, since I spanked her on Mother's Day (oh yes I did. Because there simply wasn't a more appropriate day for that to happen).

The tantrums. Jesus wept, the tantrums. Thursday, she threw screaming fits from about 4-7 pm. In and out of time-out, in, out, in, out, ad nauseam. Three hours. At the end of a workday. My arm muscles are getting a workout from lifting her in & out of that thing. Last night, which was Friday, commonly known as "try not to die [from exhaustion] night" in our house, we were treated to another three hours of hysteria which intensified to the point of Nick and I both losing our shit. I finally tossed her into her crib and walked out, and "said" to Nick (it was more like a shaky shrill panic than speaking), "Do not go in there, I don't care if she cries for two hours, I am DONE with her-- do not go in there and prolong this any further."

Five minutes later, she was asleep.

Five minutes after that, I was asleep.

This can't be normal. It just can't. There wouldn't be a human race if this was normal because NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT FUCKING MIND WOULD DO THIS.

And I still managed to wake up at 1:45, thinking about her being an only child and feeling sad and guilty over the image of her sitting alone in the back of the car on long trips. Also thinking about how much of my life is getting neglected because all I do is deal with tantrums and time-outs. Remembering e-mails I haven't answered. Phone calls I haven't returned. Things people need from me that I haven't done, like a syllabus for my summer camp. Progress reports for my students were due yesterday. Didn't do them. And forget about the state of my house. Look down a few posts to that garden one, where I was building that fence? It doesn't look much different from that, it's still all dug up and crappy and unfinished. The neighbors are making snarky comments about our lawn, which shamed me into signing up for a cheap dose of nuclear waste to be spread on it, going against every thread in my environmental conscience. Argh, it kills me! But it looks like something from a Stephen King book.

And it's all. Because. Of the tantrums.

They're over nothing. Example: She sees an orange in the fridge and wants it (this is a whole challenge in itself, deciphering what she wants through her rising-panic babble). Because this orange does not instantly materialize in her mouth, she throws herself on the floor screaming and kicking, hitting the fridge and me on the way down. Time out, during which I cut up the orange. When she calms down, I bring her to the table where her orange is waiting. Something about the sight of the fruit makes her instantly apoplectic. Resume screaming, fishtailing her body and head-butting me in the chin. Time out. I assume she's having blood sugar issues, so someone else (not Mean Mommy) tries to feed her crackers. Her response to this offering sounds like someone is pulling her fingernails off. Lather, rinse, repeat FOR THREE HOURS. Bath? Must have been made of boiling sulfuric acid. Brushing teeth? Kittens will die. And so on.

Part of the reason I can't sleep is looking forward to another day of this. Except today, I don't have work to take me away, like Calgon. I have to spend the whole day with her. We've gotten three hours of tantrums a day, but we've only spent 3-4 hours with her on those days. That's an exhausting tantrum/time-out game for 80% of our time spent with her. Eighty percent.

How do people do this? And love it? I might lose my mind today. I mean, I lost it last night, but got it back with my hearty and satisfying five hours of sleep.

Off to pick my cuticles bloody and wait for it to begin. Of course, now I'm starting to get sleepy again, 45 minutes before Sascha's due to wake up.

(ETA: I've said this before, but no matter how many times I fix the clock on this thing, it still comes up as way off-- even the minutes. It's actually 5:20 am.)