Describe your worst day with your two-year-old

[Pruni]

Just to make me feel better.

I remember dd driving me so mad that I actually threw a jar of pickles on the floor, smashing it everywhere and terrifying the life out of dd.
Felt awful afterwards...

OK, haven't done that, yet
More please?

Ah yes. Dd2 could write the manual for the ultimate toddler day. It goes something like this (there have been quite a lot of them, so the details do blur a bit):

1. Wake up early. Strop, whine, shout.
2. Once you have worn parents into submission, get up properly. Resist nappy change with hysterical crying and writhing around, despite large messy poo situation needing urgent dealing with. Then resist bum wiping, and of course object to new nappy.
3. Object to putting on dressing gown, then moan because it's cold.
4. Refuse to sit at table. Hang around (whining) under Mummy's feet while she tries to make a cup of tea. Eventually sit at table, but refuse all food offered, on the assumption that parents are trying to poison you. Scream for a drink, then throw it on the floor. Demand a banana, once peeled, reject it hysterically. Repeat the above stragies until breakfast is finished.
5. Whine, moan and complain all morning. Ask for toys, then refuse to play with them. Interrupt all meaningful activity by other family members. Demand a bottle, then only drink a couple of mills.
6. Crash out for nap, while other family members take a valium break.
7. Repeat the breakfast scenario at lunchtime. Do deliberately provocative things like throwing cutlery on floor, then have a strop when told off. Get put out on the stairs, screech at a volume that prevents anyone else having a normal conversation. Furiously reject all invitations to "come in and be nice now". Eventually batter parents into letting you have pudding even though you clearly don't deserve any, and Petit Filou are bad for you anyway.
8. Afternoon: see morning.
9. After supper, refuse to get undressed. Then refuse to get in the bath. Try to escape from the bathroom, and lie on floor screaming because the door won't open. Once in the bath, refuse to sit down. Refuse to clean teeth. Throw wet flannels out of the bath, and screech when asked not to. Then refuse to get out of the bath. When parents finally let the water out with you still in the bath, have a major meltdown. Then refuse to put nappy on, refuse to put clothes on. Refuse to choose your own bedtime story, but reject all stories chosen by others.

10. Finally crash out after screeching for at least an hour and rattling the cot like a caged tiger.

Feel better now, Pruni? One good strategy is to photograph the day's highlights. You can do some hilarious collages of serious toddler strops, and when she moves into teenage strops you can threaten to show them to her friends.

Frogs, I love you.

I am almost crying slightly hysterical tears here...!!

(Love the photography idea btw)

frogs post so familiar. DD around 2.4 -2.9 was like that. Pruni this may help you from age 3rs DD is largely a delight to be with, a real companion not an adversary.

oh god. is this all i have to look forward to

how do you survive it?

hum sounds about right, but missing the

throw favourite toy over bannisters and then demand that mummy picks it up. Throw major strop when mummy refuses.

bit

and the
pull dog's hair, si in dog's bed, generall wind dog up and then cry when he hides under the table out of your way, or eats the chocolate/biscuit/toast you have thrown on the floor

Mazzystar I don't know but alcohol seems like a good solution.
This is a bad day but my own fault - I offered swimming but dd is terrified of the pool, so it all stems from there.

frogs - YES!
My dd2 to a T. My problem is my other 2 were nice 2 year olds so I have taken having a monster in the house quite hard.

Picture me having gone very quickly round the supermarket with DD pulling every thing off the shelves - old woman customer tellin my child not to do that! how dare she - me losing my rag - put DD in trolley seat which she objected to very loudly! old woman customer says to cashier - It was so quiet when I first walked in here - Me nearly knocking her block off! get shopping and children in car - DD still screaming and kicking (literally) so I have to stop car - get her out and sit her on pavement until she calms down - steam coming out of my ears and think oh god I want to go back to work! It was like a comedy seen - in hindsight! And why - because I wouldn't let her 'help' by dropping the glass jar of Dolmio sauce in the trolley! MY DS say's - mum please can you get her to shut up - if only!

Hope she is in a better mood tonight - although if this morning is anything to go by!

Oh god jayne at least I don't have old lady involvement to deal with (yet)

She was lucky I had DS with me - otherwise I would have 'expressed my feelings' - not a good example to set him though!

Every day is bad with DS2 atm. He is 3 on Tuesday, but is still very much going through the terrible 2's!
Lets just take today for example: woke up, asked for weetabix. Had a tantrum because I wouldn't allow him to pour his own milk in the bowl & refused to eat his breakfast.
Went into playroom with DS1 (6) & within 2 minutes DS2 was wailing because DS2 had wacked him with the pole from their toy market stall.
Has tantrum while getting dressed because he doesn't want his Thomas vest removed.
When asked to come & get his shoes, shouts "no" & runs off.
Leave him at childminders house.
Pick him up from childminders house to hear he had to sit on the step of shame due to drawing over their dining chair!
Try to get his shoes on & get him in buggy - DS has huge tantrum & I have to practically sit on him to get each shoe on & wrestle to get him into buggy.
Put him up for his afternoon nap, only to hear him wail "I'm poorly" 5 mins later.
Go upstairs to find he had got out of his bed, gone into bathroom & put half a bottle of shampoo all over his hair!!
Had to wash his hair, get shampoo out of his eyes & now thankfully he is sleeping!!!
You must feel better now!!

You have cheered me right up ladies! DS is two in a few weeks and hugely interesting and entertaining and generally delightful but sometimes I just can't do anything right, whinge whinge whinge, complete unreasonableness etc etc. Much easier to be at work sometimes but I feel bad for thinking that. So glad to know I'm not the only one and it is just a phase but it feels like a very long one sometimes!

Yes agree this thread is mighty cheering
Thank you all I do feel much better now.

One of the (many) current daily battles with ds is getting him into his buggy in order take dd to school.

It all kicks off when I try to do the coat up. He runs off and holds onto the stair gate so tightly that I have real difficulty prising his fingers off, one by one, at the same time trying to avoid his feet kicking wildly. Once I eventually bundle him into the buggy, he invariably slides downwards onto the floor several times whilst I wrestle with the straps. It goes without saying that during this process he is bellowing 'no no no' at top volume, whilst dd runs round shrieking.

When we drop dd off and come home, we have a similar process but in reverse and the whole scenario gets repeated at 3.15 in the afternoon.

I could go on and on with numerous other examples but I can feel myself getting wound up!

Oh yes I recognise that one.
We have the added problem that "I want it" and "I don't want it" sound exactly the same - what the hell chance do we have??!

DS1 was wailing after being wacked, not DS2!

Dd2 is currently wandering around in her pants and a pair of slightly grubby socks. I am steeling myself to argue her into some clothes, especially since the ones she wore earlier today are soaking wet after she splashed them 'washing up', and then we will walk to school to get her sister because the buggy is 'broken' (ie I am a nasty mummy who insists on walking), and she will insist on a 'cayyeee' (carry) because she has refused a nap and I will therefore lug her along the road with egg on my face.

And we are having quite a good day.

Ah frogs, LOLOLOL
We have days like Frogs' quite often, but as we are potty training we also have the silent but deadly stealth turd on the sitting room carpet after one hour's exchanges of "do you want a poo?" "NAH".
We also have the sit-down in the street protest on the way to nursery, the 0-60 runaway protest as we approach the incredibly busy five-way A road junction that we cannot avoid, and best of all, the switching off the TV while big brother is watching it pre-supper face-off. Anything that is not Sketty with Mushrooms and Bacons is turfed onto the floor.
Bedtime is currently prolongued by one hour because we put her down, she chirps, need wee-wee, we get her up, remove sleeping bag, pyjama bottoms, pull-up, she squeezes micro-droplet of urine into potty, goes ape if we don't applaud, faffs around with loo roll, back on go all the layers, 15 minutes later...repeat ad nauseam.
Alcohol consumption has rocketed in our house since January.

I went to brush my teeth and my DS was playing down stairs. I had been in the bathroom for about 5 minutes or so when I heard a loud knock at the door. I found a trail of clothes and answered the door to find DS standing next to the man who cleans the bins, without a stitch on. I had locked all the doors but the resourceful little boy had got the key to the patio doors and got out the gate. This was the gate that DH had assured me the night before that there would be no way DS could open it. I spent the rest of the day shouting to him everytime I went out the room and dreading a phonecall from the police.

from an archived thread:

By Enid on Wednesday, 10 April, 2002 4:30:33 PM

Potty training dd...she was in the bathroom the other day while I was on the phone. Suddenly I heard a panicky little voice saying 'Mummy, oh no, quickly, poo coming!!!' and she staggered out into the bedroom holding her bottom with poo oozing out between her fingers. Then she used her hands to rest herself against the wallpaper and trod the rest between my lovely painted wooden floorboards.

I've never felt less glamorous than while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing c**p out of the gaps in the boards with an old toothbrush.