Round 32

Remember when I mentioned a few months back how the kids seemingly take turns with their "challenging" phases, almost as if they are a tag team, giving each other a high five as one leaves the "ring of naughtiness" while the other one enters?

Well, apparently it's Charley's turn in the ring. And it's not a good round.

As I mentioned before, we went through a pretty tough spell with Zander after we weened him off the pacifier. He was moody, whiny, clingy, weepy, and temperamental. I swear to you, he acted like this for almost an entire month, with not too many smiles passing over his lips. And if you know Zander, this is pretty unusual. But much to our relief, he seemed to finally be getting past this horrible phase the past couple weeks, and even more to our relief, his beautiful smile returned. All during this same phase, Charley was fairly cooperative, cheerful, well-behaved, and generally pretty pleasant to be around. Excited about Zander's return to his happy self, we failed to remember that this likely meant Charley was heading for something not so exciting. Boy were we in for a rude awakening.

The past few days, Charley has become completely uncooperative, obstinate, sassy, moody, and just plain difficult. I would guess that she was in time-out at least ten times today. Every little thing in her day becomes a struggle. I kid you not, I spent nearly 30 minutes this morning going through a cycle of telling her take off her pj's, giving her a warning to take off her pj's or it would be time-out, going to time-out, and apologizing, THREE different times. All just to take her pajamas off. The last couple days she has become the "naughty" kid in her swimming class, distracting all the other kids, squirming, not following instructions, splashing, etc., and I think she's actually regressed in her swimming skills this past week because of her behavior. She is even getting put in time-out by the teacher, and still she won't behave. All of this is very out of character for Charley, just as Zander's last phase was out of character for him. Meanwhile, Zander is being cheerful, affectionate, calm, thoughtful, and generally pretty fun to be around.

At the end of the day, all I can say is THANK GOD that the kids are never in one of their difficult phases at the same time. Seriously, I think someone upstairs is cutting me a break if the kids tag team me . . . because fighting one of them in the ring at a time is already exhausting enough. :)