Moo or Moe?

Maggie thinks she's the 4th Stooge. She gets great pleasure in pulling your nose, poking you in the eye, slapping you across the face and crawling all over you like you're a jungle gym. Today, I came home from work so happy to see her I picked her up and let her grab my cell phone only to be bonked on the side of the head with it followed by laughter. I was able to open my eyes for a split second to see her coming at me full force a second time with the most evil smile on her face and caught her just in time before I was knocked unconscious.

"You gotta keep your head on a swivel in the Crawford house" so Erik says

This is what I get for having a kid with the biggest antagonist of all time. I was never bullied in school but I think I'm being bullied at home. Maybe this is a Dateline waiting to happen..."kids who bully their parents". Last week she tried scratching my eye out and actually broke the skin. I'm starting to think people at work think I'm a battered wife. Nope, just a battered mom...to a 1 year old.

Now the eye gouging thing one could have something to do with the fact that she will not allow me to cut her nails anymore. She waves her hands furiously until I back away with the clippers and I decide, once again, we'll do this later. The other night I decided to bring a little book light into her room and tried cutting them while she was sleeping. It didn't matter, she moved her hands and feet just as much as when she's awake.

So I think the lesson here is I need to show her who's boss (I'm sensing a pattern with this blog). Last night I decided enough was enough with the nails and I put her on my lap and let her cry while I cut them. It took all of 20 seconds, she survived and was happy as ever as soon as it was done. Although Erik said she looked like Cujo, foaming at the mouth, crying that silent cry where the facial expression is there but nothing is coming out.

We have been noticing that she knows what she is not supposed to touch yet does so anyway while she looks at us...smiling. We ignore it and she gets bored. So I think I've finally learned something here. I can sum up successful parenting in one word - REACTION. Something like B + A + R = BB (Bullying + Antagonism + Reaction = BAD BABY) which I suppose will eventually send mommy to the BAR. Replace the R with a little I (ignore) and we will all be much saner in the morning.

I knew that algebra would come in handy some day.