Rough Patch

I feel like we hit a rough patch with the kids this week.

I'm not saying parenting is easy, because it isn't at all. Most days are decent though-of course you have your daily challenges (kids fighting, bothering each other, not listening, etc).

But the past 2 days or so were pretty rough and stressful.

Last night Cassandra was quite the beast at bedtime. Let me preface this by saying that she is my "easy" sleeper. PJs, brush teeth, read books, rock in her chair, bed. She's wide awake when we put her down and she rarely cries. Piece of cake compared to how Avery went to bed.

Last night was a totally different story. After dinner I got Avery in the bath. Gabe brought Cassandra up for her bath too and something set her off and she was just crying and crying. She tried to escape the bathroom so he shut the door-well, sister lost it. Screamed her head off! We put her in the tub while she was still crying a bit and as he started to rinse her, she got so worked up that she puked in the tub!  So you know what that means-kids out, drain the tub, clean the tub, start all over. At this point I decided not to bother with a bath for Cassandra. She was still crying like crazy. So I sat with her wrapped in her towel and just tried to settle her down. Gabe took her to get ready for bed, and within a few minutes, she was screaming again. After about 15mins or so, he handed her off to me (she was screaming for me). I sat and rocked her and she settled down. However, she wouldn't put her head down or relax. Every time I tried to stand up, she cried. If I mentioned the crib, she cried. Somehow I got her in her crib and refused to pick her up. She finally laid down and I snuck out of her room. Well, when she realized I left, she screamed for me repeatedly! I wasn't going to go in unless she really freaked so she ended up crying for about 15min and then finally fell asleep. I think it was over an hour from start to finish of her just crying last night.

Then tonight she was pretty good until I put her in her crib-then she started screaming for me again. This time it only lasted 5min and she conked out.  I hope it's just a phase. I think she's getting smarter now and realizing we're leaving her and it's bedtime.

And of course, there's Avery. Since returning to daycare, she has gotten quite a mouth on her. She's been pretty sassy with some back talk and it's very hard to deal with. What she tends to do is repeat what I say and says is very nasty:

 "Avery you need to be a better listener." "No, YOU need to listen."
"Avery please leave your sister alone." "No, YOU leave her alone."

Get my drift?! 

It's definitely picked up in the past week or so and most of the time I have no idea how to react to her. We've done time out a few times for saying something nasty, but lately I feel like she'd be sitting there all day! I wish I had a good way to nip it in the bud.