Millie has been a fairly temperate 2-year-old thus far. This week she has shown me more of the 2- year old moodiness and most of it has been tolerable, but this afternoon I had to sing the Daniel Tiger song about anger over and over. Do you know what song I am talking about? " If you're feeling really mad and you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four!" I was singing that song to help myself and hopefully help Millie at the same time. It all started when I did the most horrible thing of taking the iPad out of the iPad case. For a 2- year- old I guess this is detrimental. She is so used to having that case on that it threw her into a tantrum. She ran off crying "my iPad my iPad" over and over. I find myself starting to react. I want to scream and throw myself on the floor too. So much anxiety and reactiveness builds up inside of me, but I don't let it blow. I stopped myself and just let her do her thing, while I did my thing (which is down a shot of tequila..just kidding...no really...just kidding). I took some deep breaths then grabbed her and started the bedtime ritual early. As I am starting her bath, she decides she wants to brush her teeth first. I say, "Let's take a bath first, then brush our teeth". Well, that didn't make her happy and she went into another tantrum. Why didn't I just let her brush her teeth? I should have. What's the big deal? The big deal is that getting Millie to brush her teeth correctly is something I dread every night. She just sucks on the toothbrush and doesn't actually brush. When I try to help her, she screams. It's an ongoing battle. So this is why after dealing with one tantrum, I just wanted to mellow out while she mellowed out in the bath. Getting her to fall asleep was also a struggle. I can assure you that once she drifted off, I was having myself a bubble bath of my own. So looking back on the day, what could I have done differently? I think maybe I should have held her and showed her that the ipad was okay without a case. I, also, could have just let her brush her teeth before her bath. I want her to know that her decisions are important too and I should let her make decisions when it's an appropriate time and place for a 2-year-old to make a decision. Now, I just need to find the strength and energy to stay calm and present at the end of the day when my energy has been drained.