LIVING WITH MARIAH

I've always believed girls were easier than boys based on the rather one dimensional example of my sweet little girl.

My boys, for some strange reason, didn't love to spend hours cuddling up with mummy or doing quiet girly things together, instead they preferred to run away from me, climb, destroy everything and hit everyone. 

I understood my little girl. We were girls together. She was so grounded and self-assured. A whole complete thoughtful little package. We shared common parts and hormones. 

Or so I thought. 

Until now. 

Before my poor startled fearful eyes, in the last six months, since about two months before she turned 3, she morphed into Mariah Carey. 

Not in the singing stakes (phew), nor the looks, but in the Diva-like tantrum whirlwinds that just destroy me, emotionally, psychologically and physically. 

They erupt from anywhere, over nothing, and they hit you like a tornado, powerful, uncompromising, unsettling, taking everyone in their wake. 

So from the happiest, easiest child in the house, she has become the moodiest and hardest. I guess it had to happen sooner or later. 

But living with Mariah was not on my agenda. 

I read recently that Mariah has a "staircase assistant" whose job it is to test that stairs are safe to walk down in heels and an assistant who stands around just holding her towels. 

I know how the poor assistants feel, beholden to a Diva's every whim, hoping she'll go easy on me just this once, worried where the next volcanic eruption will come from. My Diva's demands are getting even more unreasonable - and I'm demented by the whole thing. 

I've finally come to agree with what everyone says: "Girls wreck your head, boys wreck your home."

Mornings are the worst. I have to take Thyroid pills in the morning to enable me to have the energy to get out of bed - mornings are a slow waking up process for me and I get frazzled by noise. Thanks to Tegan, as soon as I wake up I am screamed at. It's constant at the moment - from what to wear, every bit of getting dressed, not waiting for her to come downstairs together, not having the right shoes to wear, not being given the right breakfast, should daddy dare to be around to want to drop her to playschool, to refusing to sit in her car seat and asking her to wear a coat and shoes outside. 

Mealtimes are a nightmare as she refuses to eat anything that has nutritional value. There's several high-pitched 10-minute kicking-on-the-floor strops a day over ice-scream and lollypops. I try not to cave in, but that just makes it worse, she gets so volatile. I have to try to calm her down and then negotiate a compromise that involves a lesser evil and maybe some fruit first.

But bedtime is the worst time of all. She hates sleep. She won't fall asleep unless someone is cuddled next to her. This can take about an hour - and sadly I'm not able to do this every night as there's 2 other little ones to get to bed too, and I've plenty to catch up with myself. She keeps coming downstairs, we put her back to bed, often this has reached 11pm at night, which means all of us are very grumpy the next morning. 

I'm still recovering after her most recent flare up. A full-blown tornado over a pencil her brother was using for his homework that has left me fragile and raw. She has bounced back but is still not talking to me after telling me she didn't like me over and over. 

We tell ourselves it's just a phase. She's going through a big emotional time, starting playschool, making new friends, seeing herself as a separate person, testing the boundaries, building her self-esteem. 


But it's such a huge challenge. 

I try to zone out, ignore it, take deep breaths and not roll my eyes nor react. But it's hard. She wants me to react; to take her seriously, to give her my full attention, she needs to be louder and more demanding than the boys right now.

This is new unchartered territory for me - because my hurricane first born child got easier after he turned 3, and now he's nearly 5 he's calming down more and starting to listen (more than he used to anyway). This week in school he got "healthy eater of the week" and I couldn't be more proud.

So I have no answers, just hopes, that she will grow out of this testing phase a happy, contented, fully-functioning amazing little girl. 

Be gone Mariah! 

Please. 

I don't think my nerves can take anymore. 



[Disclaimer, I love my little girl dearly but sometimes mums just need to huff and puff to blow away their frustrations]