Uncharted territory.

There are a lot of things people don't tell you about being a parent. The first three months suh-huuuccckkk. Your boobs will never, ever be the same, even if you're *ahem* lucky enough to dodge stretch marks. Your kids will do things like this:


And this...

Oh, and don't forget this:

But one thing nobody adequately warns you about -- because if they did, you'd immediately rip out your reproductive organs and throw them in the garbage disposal -- is toddlerhood. "Terrible Twos" barely grazes the surface of this dodecahedron of sanity deprivation. So here, let me put it to you in ways that nobody else -- or at least, nobody with any interest in furthering the human race -- will tell you: sometimes, two-year-olds are real assholes.

Nobody tells you about the brain-shredding whining noise they make or that shrill scream that comes the minute the word "no" pierces into their tiny little cognitive process. In one morning alone this week, in the 90 minutes between when Punk and I wake up (when Punk wakes up and incidentally, wakes me up by alternatively screaming and shrieking "MOMMY NOW! MOMMY WAKE UP!") and when we leave for daycare/work she had six -- SIX! -- meltdowns. These meltdowns, which involve huge tears streaming now her face, banshee screaming, and flailing, erupted over:

• Sternly telling her to stop kicking me, after she aggressively connected foot to cheekbone, while I was changing her diaper.
• Telling her she could not have cookies for breakfast.
• The Imagination Movers being on TV.
  
• Not allowing her to bring her entire stuffed animal collection to the car.
• Not stopping the car to retrieve her Sophie Bear, whom she had chucked -- by her own crazy toddler free will -- into the cargo area of the Jeep. This created a screaming meltdown for 3/4 of our drive to daycare, while I cranked up Dead Kennedys and stared straight ahead at the road, wondering just where my life went so horribly, horribly wrong.
  
• Sternly telling her, before releasing her from her car seat, that today we are going to be a NICE GIRL at daycare (that's another topic I will discuss here shortly).

Seriously. For the love of tapdancing, menstruating CHRIST, kid, cut me a break. By the time we got to the daycare I was about two seconds from opening the door, kicking her out and screaming "TUCK AND ROLL, KIDDO!"

She's not just being a pain in the ass for me, either. The sitter's damn near had it with her, and I don't blame her, either. This past week, every day I went to pick Punk up, it was a new story of hitting (Monday), biting (Tuesday), taking toys and slapping (Wednesday), attempted homicide (Thursday) and pushing (Friday).

Did she just say "attempted homicide"? Yes I did. Punk's apparently working at thinning out the herd by pushing a fellow toddler OUT OF THE TREEHOUSE, where he fell five feet to his doom. By "doom" I mean a bruised cheek, some sniffling, and a lot of profuse apologizing by me to said child's mom. But I mean... really, kid? We're now ATTEMPTING TO KILL CHILDREN?

She's a little girl! She isn't actually trying to KILL kids! Oh I'm sure she is. She wanted to drive the steering wheel in the tree house and fuck anyone who stands in her way. I'm not fooled by her big brown eyes and deliciously nommable cheeks. The kid's a sociopath. A baby-cooking, child-killing, meltdown-throwing sociopath. I love her with every ounce I have in me, but sometimes.... sometimes my kid's a real asshole and you regret inviting her to the party, if ya know what I'm sayin'.

But all you can do is charge forward. There's nothing else that can be done. All I can do is buckle her, thrashing and screaming and biting, into her car seat and repeat over and over to the sitter's our daily mantra of, "We will not BITE. We will not HIT. We will not PUSH. We will be a NICE GIRL." Most of that's for me, especially if you understood my boss, but it's applicable to her too, I suppose.

And all I can do is buckle myself in, thrashing and screaming and kicking and biting, and keep on driving.