The Night Before and the Toddler from hell!

As long as all goes to plan, tonight will be the last night that I go to bed not knowing whether I will ever have a daughter or not.

I've made a lot of progress mentally over the past week or so and I think the word "Boy" will now just result in a shrug and "hey, never mind" rather than a nervous breakdown!

The bigger problem, by far, is my toddler. He is 2 and 10 months and driving me up the wall. As I type he his wailing crocodile tears because I wouldn't let him press the number "2" on my keyboard.

"mummy"

"Yes"

"can I press the number 2"

"Mummy's writing, you can press it once you've drunk your milk"

"no, now"

"no, once you've finished your milk"

"wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........ Mummy??

"yes"

"can I press it?"

"Finish your milk" (it's a matter of principle now)

"i have"

"don't lie to me"

glug glug glug glug

"Mummy.... I finished......."

2wsazzzzzzzzgggggbbbhhh

Anyway, I digress. I really don't know what I'm getting wrong. He is just so contrary at the moment. Everything I say causes an argument. He does things on purpose to annoy me, including repeating what I say (again, as I write, he's singing "stop it, stop stop stop, Stop it, stop stop stop...!). He's not going to bed like he used to and last night it was 10pm before we had him asleep... and then he was up at 0515... how can that be fair? It's typical that it's come at the time when I'm exhausted myself and could really do with the well behaved boy I had a few months ago.

I think the problem might be that I'm being too slack in the hope of an easy life. I'm letting him stay up until 8pm tonight in the hope that I don't have to have a fight to get him to bed. What I should be doing is being strict, keeping him in a routine, letting him watch CBeebies until 7pm, giving him a bath and then reading him a story in him room and then putting him to bed with low lights. In reality, he's watching Eastenders with me, then I'll take him upstairs and we'll have a fight because he'll say he's not tired, he'll demand I leave the light on and I'll leave him there crying. I'll come downstairs, make myself dinner and he'll be screaming at me until I go up and put him back in bed again.

Oh, I know I'm whinging, and when I write this I'm thinking, what you're thinking "why the hell don't you just do it the first way then" "he shouldn't be watching Eastenders". But I'm so tired, I've been up and working since 0745!

Anyway, I will stop my rambling now and get on with the intriguing plot lines of Eastenders. At least I've got Celebrity MasterChef and Mistresses to look forward to...