I've been hesitant about posting this for various reasons but now feel like I'm getting to the total end of my tether.
DS (3 years and 5 months) is a handful and I am not coping very well. He is bright, friendly and engaging, and can be lovely, but, if tired or bored, or if not expertly managed, easily tips over into very testing behaviour. He can be very cuddly and affectionate when he is in the mood, but then gets so angry when he doesn't get his own way, he will hit, scream at me "I don't like you anymore I want to change you for a new mummy you are no good!" try to scratch my face, pull my hair, bash me with things, spit at me. Often it feels as if he is primed and bracing himself against being told "no" - sometimes he asks me something and I say, sure, and he launches off into a rage because he was triggerhappy and expecting me to thwart him. He is always trying to control what happens. He is what my nan would call "too clever by half". He is not an easy child to parent - my mum even said this (previously she thought it was me being wishy washy with him, until she looked after him for a couple of days while I had a weekend away).
He's very outgoing and makes friends with other kids very easily, he chats to other adults easily and is very confident. He goes to nursery two days a week and is about to increase to three days a week preschool. He is doing fine and thrives at nursery, but he does seem to get bored and frustrated a lot at home, which is hard for me to address because I am in a terrible state really. I feel run ragged, depressed and resentful. I would like another child, but have found DS so demanding that I have put off getting pregnant because I feel I can hardly cope with DS let alone DS plus an infant. This is not so much of an issue as DS will be starting school next year, so I feel I could cope, but it is an indication of the lie of the land I think.
I have lost my mummy mojo. I feel tired all the time, and resentful, snappy. It feels like I want to live in a certain way, but I am unable to because DS dominates and fights his corner so much that all my energy goes towards him. I am not very confident, and by nature am rather reserved and introverted. I find it hard to make "mummy friends" though I have really tried to enable him to have little friends and have tried to keep various playdate friendships going for him.
I don't want to make him out to be a terror, nor myself to be a wishy washy parent - neither is true. There are many lovely times and he is a great kid but increasingly I feel like most of the time we are in pitched battle, and he is winning. It just feels so hard - much harder than when he was a baby, which despite the sleepless nights and BF on demand now seem like halcyon days, and I wasn't expecting that. I thought that once the terrible twos were over it would be all nature walks and potato painting and making jam tarts and reading Moomins. Not throwing toilet rolls downstairs like the Andrex puppy, drumming on the windows with wooden spoons, swordfighting with sticks wearing ben 10 underpants on his head and drawing on the furniture. And that's not the naughty stuff.
Any advice? Feel like I'm overlooking something and due to being worn out can't see the wood for the trees...