Serenity NOW!

LT called me at 4:00 on Friday to tell me that she was stuck in DPH Survey Hell (a special kind of hell reserved for nursing home managers and staff) and could I please pick up the kidlet from daycare. I was planning on leaving work early anyway, so off I went.

I pulled into the daycare parking lot just as the wind started whipping up and the sky was dark. I ran inside to scoop up kidlet and get her in the car before the deluge began. When I got to her classroom, she was sitting with her classmates watching The Lion King but she saw me right away. She came over to me, raised her arms and wiggled her fingers (kidlet-speak for "pick me up right now before I crumple to a pathetic heap on the floor!". I picked her up, she melted into my shoulder, and began to whimper. Her teachers both looked aghast and hurried to tell me that she had been fine all day. I shrugged, muttered something about teething (does anyone need to get all four canine teeth coming in at the same time?) and hurried out to the car. I got kidlet detached from me (she's like Velcro) and strapped into her seat seconds before giant raindrops began splatting onto the windshield.

We got home, and the whimpering intensified to a whine that was only placated by Barney for 20 minutes. Not only that, but she spent all 20 minutes lying in the same spot, without moving, on the couch. I went in the living room to make sure she wasn't dead and sat next to her on the couch. She sat up, said, "I have Mama?" and crawled into my lap. I wrapped her in her favorite blanket and she promptly fell asleep. She slept in my arms for a whole hour, until LT came home.

Thus ended the sweetness.

Saturday was an endless bout of whining. She dragged her blanket around like Linus, and demanded to be attached to LT at all times. She wanted nothing to do with me until Sunday when LT went to work and I was the only Mama there to tend to her every need and whim. There were many needs. And whims. There was much whining, and much uncharacteristic demanding. And throwing of objects (full sippy cups being her projectile of choice). The little monster gave me just the briefest glimpse of what the parent of every other almost-2-year-old on the planet deals with. I didn't like it. By the time LT got home I was twitching. When my Mom called at 8:00 to tell me she was back from Bermuda, and could she please steal kidlet for a day this week I had to force myself to not scream "Now! Take her now and I'll pay you to keep her!"

By the time kidlet settled down and fell asleep at 10:00, I was completely exhausted, and I slept like the dead until this morning, when I awoke at 6:10 to a little voice whining "I have Mama!" Thank goodness for daycare, I thought. When I saw her last, kidlet was sitting at the table in her classroom, munching on toast as if it were the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. There was no sign of the whining, demanding, sippy cup throwing beast that I had dealt with all weekend.

I took a deep breath, and left for work.