There are three things I can hear which , to me, are equivalent to having a spinal tap.
All come out of a 3 1/2 year old's mouth.
"I want"
"I'm hungry"
"I'm thirsty"
marry that into
"please do xyz"
"I'm just colouring/playing/anything but xyz"
and it is enough to send a normal (sometimes), sane ( sometimes) mother into hyperdrive.
I am sitting here whilst Mouse is eating her yogurt after dinner - of which she ate the pasta, the prawns and one, yes ONE, pea...and I really could just happily get up and run away ( walking would be too slow). When I have a day like today, when in the normal, sane, RATIONAL mother mind I can tell myself is a very typical day for a 3 1/2 year old, and I should respond as such; yet in the rest of my mind I am having a slow fit and want to strangle her, I just wonder what ever possessed us to want this little monster in the first place and why on God's green earth are we doing it again?
And no mommy-brigade, it is just one of those days and I am just venting so retract the claws. Of course I adore her more than life itself, it just today I am not liking her as much as life itself, and if you said it never happened to you, then you ,my dear, are lying!
