18 Months and The Start of Something New

Today is an odd day. Evie has been in a phase for the last week where she is just plain frustrating. She doesn't want to listen to anything we say to her, and she won't sit still for 5 seconds. Which can be quite difficult to deal with when I'm so exhausted and in pain. It's a new phase - one that has me reaching for the nonexistant parenting manuals to tell me what to do. I would really like for her attention span to grow just a bit so she could sit for a half hour and watch one show with me to relax. She's busy getting into everything, and I've found myself getting frustrated, which doesn't happen often. Until this week that is. I think I've finally come to a point where I need a break and I feel bad about it. I love my daughter more than life itself, but I'm starting to understand why people go on vacations alone haha. Of course this makes me feel like a terrible mother. I know I'm not at all, but I hold myself to these incredibly high expectations of perfect patience, perfect temper, perfect energy, perfect attentiveness, and I feel like such a failure when I can't meet them or when I just need to lay down for a bit. E's taken to screaming and crying and flailing during diaper changes again. She's perfected the "wet noodle" where she goes limp when I'm trying to pick her up, which leaves me in an awkward position and then I feel bad for holding her funny. She only wants to play with the things I don't want her to play with. She needs more time to run free and roam, but I'm getting slower these days, and it gets harder to chase her. Really, I'm also hormonal and irritable because of that and that makes me feel worse because that's not E's fault. I'm pretty sure E is showered with love pretty much constantly, and the times I do raise my voice are few and far between, so I hope it's showing her that when I do, it's because I mean it. I don't want to be the "friend" parent. I want to be the parent who does whatever is in their child's best interest. But I'm not sure how to establish the mommy/daughter relationship and keep in line with relatively gentle parenting. And that's another thing that I just have to figure out. How do I show her that mommy means business without shutting down the things I want to encourage - like how headstrong she is. That's going to get her so far in life. But there are times where she simply doesn't know what she's doing is dangerous or otherwise not OK, and I have to show her that. It's a balance I'm just now starting to have to figure out because she's been SO GOOD for so long. I think I'm coming close to perfecting my mommy voice though. There's a certain tone I use when I say "Evangeline Skye!" where she just.. stops.. whatever it is she's doing. Or lingers a minute to make sure I mean business and then leaves haha. E's such a mommy's girl though and I love it so much. I love how she climbs on my lap and hugs and kisses me and snuggles in. It usually only lasts 5-10 seconds before she's off on some incredibly important toddler mission, but those seconds make my whole day. She's such an amazing little girl, and like I told her daddy today, we just need to adjust to this, just like we've adjusted to all her other phases. We need to really be a good team. We're lucky in that she has been so good all along, and she really still is. She's testing her boundaries which is a completely normal thing for this age. How much can she do before mommy gets mad? I've read a bit on toddler behavior so everything makes sense to me, and I know it's age-appropriate, I just hope we're handling it "right". Whatever the case may be, she's growing into such an amazing little girl. She's so strong-willed and independent. She loves doing things on her own. She loves to "sing". She has a pretty decent vocabulary now, and she uses it so well. She knows to say "bye" to people on the phone and such. It's pretty cute. I just love her so much that I worry constantly that she's happy and we're doing things to nurture her and to promote happiness and trust and such. And now I just want to go home and hug her. And then put her cute little butt in bed and go to sleep!