My Worst Nightmare

Who kidnapped my child and replaced him with this whiny, screaming 2 1/2 year old???  I'm gonna get you!

Yeah, actually, it was me.  I did it.  Well, Jadie and I did it.  After church yesterday we went to Jadie's grandma's house for a family dinner/get-together.  We thought it was for lunch.  She says that she told us to eat something first and that we would be eating later in the afternoon.  There was a major gap in communication.  Apparently our definitions of "lunch after church" are very different.  Oh well, what are you gonna do?  We took a quick trip to grab something to tide us over until the 4:00 lunch she'd planned.  Anyhow, I'm way off subject now.  Back to how I arrived at the nightmare behavior I experienced today.  

Since we were at Grandma's ALL day long (until 8:30 pm) and Caleb had plenty of cousins to play with, he did not have his nap.  His behavior was amicable the entire time.  Needless to say, playing with 4 boy cousins meant that he had spent some time outside and had gotten plenty sweaty and dirty.  And since he'd played hard all day and not had a nap at all, he fell asleep on the way home.  No big deal.  Except that he was dirty and sweaty.  Since I'm so logical, I woke him by putting him in the bathtub for a quick scrub down.  He FREAKED!!!  We finally got him calmed down and asleep around 9:45 pm.

This morning he woke at 5:15 am and I had to go sleep on his floor to get in a few more hours of shut-eye (he fell back to sleep too).  We got up (for real this time) at 8:30 am and he seemed to be doing well.  And that was the last of my sweet little Caleb.  

After breakfast, every request, every instruction for the rest of the day was met with opposition and defiance, not to mention, screaming and tears.  Including the much needed nap time.  Tears and screaming ensued at 2:30 pm and continued until I warmed a cup of milk (which he downed in 2 minutes flat) and he zonked out at 4:00 pm.  Finally, some peace and quiet.  I woke him up for dinner at 6:00 pm.  I should have prepared myself for more wailing and flailing.  He did not eat dinner.  An hour and a half later, he opted for endless graham crackers instead.  At this point, I let it go.  

I expect to see the REAL deal again in the morning.  I don't know if I can do it again tomorrow.  It's getting so hard to formulate every instruction into two choices.  For example:  "Come sit at the table for dinner."  After he whines no and begins to pout, I say, "Do you want to come sit at the table for dinner, or lay here on the floor in your room crying by yourself?"  GRRRRRRR!!!!!