They say...

that if you can deal with them as toddlers, you can deal with them as teenagers. I think I'm in for a very rough ride during Quin's teenage years.

He knows how to push all my buttons right now, and it's all I can do to not break down and yell at my child for part, if not most, of many days. Take today. Q and I were up before the kids; when they decided to grace us with their presence, Quin was in a good mood. Then I had the temerity to ask him to get into undies (and out of his dirty diaper) before eating breakfast. That started the whining. Then I told him he couldn't have animal crackers, goldfish, or cookies for breakfast. But he could have Cheerios. That made him marginally happier. Then I asked him to get dressed. Five times. The whining was pretty bad, and the tantrums started after about request #3. "No, Mama do it, Mama help me." I told him that if he was too little to get dressed by himself, that he was too little to go sledding, and that he had to put his own clothes on if he wanted to go sledding. Then the tantrums started in earnest. So. 1.5 hours after he woke up, we were finally in the car and on our way to the park. Quin played on the slides for a bit before he decided he was ready to sled. He went down a couple of times, then decided that he wanted to pull me down the hill ("Puuulllll!!" "Quin you might want to wait until you're a little bigger to pull me." "Puuullllll!!!!"). He finally wanted to ride in the sled again, and had a great time. We went back to the house, and as soon as we pulled into the garage, the whining started again. Oh, and the tantrums. We returned at 11:30, and had lunch at 12:00. In between we had two time outs, several "go ask Dada to help you," and many "you may not hit or kick your sister!"

On the plus side, he was happy to go potty before and after sledding, even if he did ask to use the "little potty" - the one that's a glorified chamber pot.