Oh The Joys...

Gaaaaahhhhh.

On the whole, I am fairly happy about the recent graduation to toddlerhood - The Toddler is funny and engaging, and can generally be trusted to stand on her own two feet while I do things like lock the door behind us, rather than having to do everything one-handed. But, as with many things, this silver lining comes encased with its own, extremely tiresome, cloud. And that's the tantrums. Oh boy.

I'm currently sitting on the sofa in a state of stunned exhaustion, even though I should be seeing to my house, of which not a single inch is clean. This (the exhaustion, not the state of the house) is because of the epic and protracted battle I had trying to put The Toddler to bed, a battle during which I had to redefine my boundaries of what constitutes "reasonable force" several times. I reached the point where you just want to hit the nearest thing with the other nearest thing. Fortunately, I stopped myself, as these things were, respectively, my daughter and her pyjama top, the latter lying on the floor after the 15th abortive attempt to get it over the former's head. I have not felt so frustrated in a long time, and this is coming from someone who's just spent the weekend dealing with the BBC.

Husband was, helpfully, at work this evening, so the splendour of this tantrum was reserved for me and me alone. I'm beginning to think this is why people say that two-parent households are a good thing. It's got nothing to do with emotional stabililty or balance of role models or any of that crap, it's simply so that there's one person to hold the arms, one to put the pyjamas on.