Happy Summer Solstice. I hope your morning was better than mine.

It started out fine enough. Penny slept until about 6:15, and then talked quietly to herself for a little bit, so I left her to it. It often seems that if I give her five minutes or so to fully wake up that she's in a better mood.

And it looked like it was going to work. When I went in, she was in the process of getting her pyjamas off. I helped her -- what the heck, right? We played silly games of peekaboo through the slats of her crib, and I draped a blanket over the bars to make a tent, and we did some silly tickle games...

Matt actually got her out of bed so I could go get dressed. There was some fuss over clothes -- he picked out a dress, she asked for a different one, and when he switched (per her request), she cried when he wouldn't switch back. But we're putting our feet down, so we both just said no. She got over it pretty quick.

But it all went downhill from there. She wanted her milk in a blue cup instead of the orange one Matt originally pulled out of the cupboard. He told her she could have the blue cup if she asked for it nicely, with a "please" and everything. She refused, so he refused.

He gave her the orange cup, and we sat in the living room listening to her tell off the milk. It was actually pretty funny.

But then it was 7 and time to go, and I asked her to come out. She ignored me. I started counting, which usually results in a frantic, "No! No! No!" and a scramble, but I actually got to three, so I had to get up and go put her in a timeout. I don't think she was upset until I took away her toy bracelets.

After the timeout, she brought over her shoes like I told her to do, then said she wanted Matt to put the shoes on her, but she wouldn't say "please" again, and then she was rude, so she got another timeout. When I eventually said, "Are you ready to come out and be nice?" she snapped, "No!"

But we have to leave the house, so after another little bit, Matt went and got her. When he picked her up, she said, "I'm mad!" and Matt kind of lost it, which I think scared her. Hell, it scared me.

After the shoes were on, she threw herself onto the floor and started kicking, and there was a big power struggle to get her to the car, along the lines of, "Get up or I'll pick you up. ...Okay." "NO! I DO IT! I DO IT!" "No, you didn't get up when I told you to. Okay, you can get in the car by yourself. Get in, or Daddy will do it. ...Okay." "NO! I DO IT! I DO IT!"

After she was strapped into her seat, I leaned in to give her a kiss, and she jerked away from me, and then screamed and cried for me to come back and she clutched my arm and begged me to get in the car with them.

I felt so bad driving away. What the heck is causing this? She's been like this for the last week or more, steadily getting worse, swinging wildly between cuddly and adorable and a shrieking demon. Is she sick? Does she have another damned feverless infection? Am I missing something? Is it us? Have we been doing something wrong all along that's just now coming home to roost? Is Matt's temper problem getting bigger than she can handle? Is she upset that we've been upsetting our evening routines a bit more than usual?

Or did she just decide to move her Terrible Twos to the Terrible Threes, instead? I remember thinking just the other day that she was nearly three, and the Terrible Twos really hadn't been as bad as I'd been braced for...

I am, after all, a priestess of Murphy.

--Liz