Oh how I LOVE the terrible two's

So I wrote a post on my other blog just last night about some of the sweet moments that make this motherhood thing worth it. I'm so glad that I got all of that out of my system then - because today was an entirely different story.

Ethan has been fussing around the clock about - brace yourself - his tongue. Apparently he must have bitten it on Monday and although I know it smarts like no other, he's really milking it for all it's worth. And it's driving me CRAZY. I mean besides the fact that one of the most annoying sounds in the world is a 2-year-old's constant (and ever so fake) whining, I look at him in his meltdown mode then glance over at Aiden with his 4-week old incision running across his skull from ear to ear, ten fingers and ten toes with scars that show there were once none...and a huge toothy grin as if he hasn't undergone 4 major surgeries in the last 7 months.

At that moment, I just can't help but think to myself "come on Ethan, seriously? It could be SO MUCH WORSE"!

Instead of laying the guilt on him, I simply tell him for the millionth time that his tongue might stop hurting if he stops putting his fingers in his mouth to pull on it. We go about our day.

At some point I survey the situation and realize that both boys are contentedly playing on their own. I make a break for the bathroom for the first time that day so I can finally relieve my bladder. Just 15 seconds - that's all I needed.

And that was all Ethan needed to reach across the baby gate, open the "art" drawer in the kitchen, remove a red crayon and drag it across the beige family room carpet. Awesome.

Did I mention that our realtor called today to let us know we have a showing on Saturday?

I spent the next few minutes online frantically Googling "how to remove crayon from carpet" and calling my mom to tattle on him. I decided baking soda and my Hoover SteamVac were my best bet...it worked like a charm! Thank God!

Fast foward through the multiple time-outs and many renditions of "I Love You, You Love Me" (see link to other blog above) to dinner time. We made Ethan his usual favorite of chicken nuggets and crunchies only to have him go into total meltdown mode once again. "My tongue hurts mommy! It hurts!" I dutifully inspected it - but upon finding no evidence of ANYTHING, I started to get all "eat your dinner or you're going to bed without any" on him.

Suddenly, guilt started to set in. I began to wonder if maybe he had some rare tongue disease that wasn't detectable by the human eye. I could see it now. Here I am getting super frustrated about him being such a baby about his darn tongue when really it would turn out that it was infected and would now have to be removed due to the fact that I didn't care to investigate further with a simple trip to the pediatrician.

So you can guess where we ended up tonight. The pediatrician's office. It's pretty bad when I don't even have to give my last name over the phone to the nurse. She either knew my voice, or they have my phone number flagged. Either way, I feel like we live at the doctors office. I actually joked with the staff that they should make a portion of the waiting room into an apartment for me and the boys. It would definitely save me many trips!

Anyway - horrible tongue disease it was not. In fact, he is the picture of health. Ears look great. No temp. Throat is clear. I would have appreciated it so much if the doctor would have just said "He's just being a pain in the ass" like I know she wanted to.

I'm pretty sure that being terrible sometimes comes with being 2. I just hope that we both survive it. T-minus 9 months...and counting!