Baby Hulk Came Back…For 2 Weeks!

In the midst of Arwen’s plans of making sure I stay humble, she decided I also needed to be destroyed, whittled down to nothing and then picked up and slammed down again.

My sweet Arwen became the baby hulk again, but full time, for two weeks straight.  Only to me, not to my husband and sadly to a couple of innocent kids.   Sadly she had a small Bible that someone gave her and she whacked our sweet friend in the face.  I was driving and had to yell “the Bible is NOT a weapon.” Not in that sense anyways.  Action was taken, but I was so horrified that she would do that.

People are just now telling me it is because she will be three and to watch my back.  I could have used that advice before I realized I need to wear a full time helmet around her. Ok I am being a bit dramatic, but really from how she usually is, it was bad. She woke up one day and was so angry, she started to hit (me really) and scream at the top of her lungs where I thought “wow the police may be stopping by.” It was all her and there was nothing I could do to calm her. She was angry because I wouldn’t let her play with sharp knives (we locked those up and away quickly) and that I didn’t want her staying in pee soaked clothes. She would run to the couch and bounce off with anger. She started wailing on me and those little fists can really hurt. We did time outs and tried to get creative on punishments and she didn’t care. I may or may not have locked myself in my hallway where I could still hear her, but cry for a bit. I may or may not have tattled on her when my husband walked in and I said how mean she was…in that moment, I seriously became five years old. My poor husband.  And when Arwen yelled at me that she was NOT my best friend, I may or may not have yelled back “Good!”  Wow.  Mature. Really Mature.  My husband on the worst day gave me a break, because obviously it was getting really bad and I had just explained how she would threaten to stab me in Target.  Excuse me??? Where did she even get that? We don’t talk like that.  Luckily I talked to my father-in-law and he explained he was teaching her to “stab” her chicken at dinner when they were watching her.  I am not a chicken!  

While I was in my own personal time out, Arwen came out to say sorry for hitting me. She ran out, whispered “sorry for hitting you,” HIT ME, and then ran back to Chris. It was lovely.

I was wondering if this was it. This was my life and maybe we need to look into some counseling for her. But all of a sudden this past weekend she woke up and was no longer baby hulk, but Arwen.  We are now reading up on strong wheeled children and how to discipline.  

That was crazy, but I am glad, at least for now…it’s over.

The Flu & Baby Hulk

 

Having the flu is the worst no matter what. What seems to add another wonderful element of it is when you and your husband have the flu at the same time, which you got from your child who had it a couple days before. The symptoms start half an hour apart from each other and you only having one bathroom.   “Funny” enough, a few days before this great adventure Chris and I were talking about the times we had the worst stomach flu of our lives, which was over 13 years ago…I jokingly said at least we haven’t both had it while having a toddler. That comment played over and over in my head as awful things were happening. I think I did this to myself.

Toddlers are wonderful and Arwen understands a lot, but she was having a very hard time understanding mommy and daddy couldn’t move from our spots and that mommy had to keep trying to sneak herself hydration pops. Let me say I am not sneaky as it is and when I pretty much can just crawl because of lack of energy I am even worse at being sneaky and hiding these pops from Arwen the investigator.  If you have food or any sort of “treat” she has a gift for sniffing it out.  She screamed because she wanted one and if I had enough energy I would have given her one, except Chris and both had no energy to clean up the crazy mess that happens when my daughter devours these pops. I am honestly not even sure if she gets any in her mouth.

Having no energy you also can’t shield yourself from this little Hulk that comes out of a toddler when they don’t understand why you can’t dance or go in their room and pretend to make all the food when just thinking about it will just make you get sick again.  We were dodging things being thrown at us and kept saying “no”, “don’t do that”. I think at one point she mocked us, but we couldn’t do much about it.

Thank GOD for my in-laws! Before baby Hulk came out of our daughter, my husband had called his parents and asked if they could please take Arwen.  We can’t even thank them enough. They came and got her and even offered to have her spend the night. It took us 2 hours just to gather what she would need. I always miss her, but we were pretty much useless at this moment. We would have survived, but it would have been so hard and although I am depicting it as if we ignored our daughter, we of course didn’t and made sure she had all the things she needed. You know food, water, diaper changes, and cuddles, which were basically her laying on us and us trying to lift our arms to snuggle her. We were just very slow in doing it.  In between her Hulk moments she would also grab my face and say, “Aww mommy it’s ok, are you ok?” and then Pray for me which goes something like this “Judea (translation: Dear God) pray for mama, Amen”. Makes every Hulk moment worth it.

My husband and I had to cancel on my in-laws for our date night that week because Arwen was sick, so with them picking her up, she got her much loved time with Nona and Papa and got to go celebrate Nona’s friend Charmaine and ride a train while Chris and I got our date…sleeping the day away and making a very exciting trip to the store after about 12 hours of sleep to get soup and Gatorade. Then we followed that up with an exciting time of falling asleep at 7pm until the next morning, while we both took turns watching TV at separate times in the middle of the night.

This was a fun adventure and I am hoping it will be another 13 years until it happens again, but we shall see!