Rough nights

I now have a big 1 year old! I'll post pictures and recount more of the party day later, but for now, I have a big 1 year old, and with that 1 year old is coming a new attitude. She screams, and quite the high pitch scream, mostly when you take something away from her she wants (usually her Lovey - Moo-Moo). The screaming has started to take on a new life though and when she is frustrated or cranky, she screams. It's not a long scream, but over, and over, and over, and over again.

Yesterday I picked up Elizabeth from daycare and she was happy. She screamed when I told her not to pull the mirror off the back of the seat (for the umpteenth time) and also when I took an envelope from her hand she had leaned over and found in the back seat. Other than that, it was a normal drive home, she got a little tired, but didn't fall asleep. Once we got home, I was able to get a few things done including feeding the dog while she tottered around the house pulling out toys and eventually crawling to her room and finding Moo-Moo in her crib. Needless to say, this was about the last moment that she was in a relatively good mood until after she had a bottle. I read to her, we read with the Tag Jr. reader, we read other books, she flipped through books on her own. We tried playing with her new Farm and all her Little People animals. Eventually I turned on Sprout to see if I could get her to just relax and stop fussing. This worked for a little while.

Dinner time came, and went, and I think she ate 1 bite of her soup. Next was a bath, which she desperately needed, and she screamed the entire time, so that was about a 2 minute bath. I think if someone had walked in the front door when I was changing her into her pjs and getting her lotioned up, they might think I was torturing her. As Mark walked into the room, Ellie was crying, I was sobbing, and luckily he took over.

I write it all down and it doesn't sound THAT horrible, but to me yesterday was just plain awful. I come home from a long day of work, and I have a little crabby-pants awaiting me once I get her out of the car seat. All I want is to spend some quality time with my little one, play with puzzles, or pretend with her play house, cook up some goodies in her play kitchen or just sit quietly and read for a while, yet I come home to a pile of tears and mild tantrums. She is only 1 for goodness sakes, tantrums aren't supposed to start yet.

This just makes being a working mommy that much harder. When I was getting her ready for bed, through both our tears, all I could think of was how I would love to have to not work. Work has been a stressor for me lately anyways, and with the lack of acknowledgment of my abilities, nowhere for me to grow to, being turned down for 2 promotions, and now I come home to a cranky girl, I just want to quit. I would lose our house, be forced to rent, just to be able to stay at home.

I know it's all probably just a phase. She is so stimulated all day long by all the other kids and things to do at daycare, she gets home and finally relaxes, and when that happens she falls apart. I honestly just don't know what to do to help her (and myself). I sure hope that I can have a better outlook on this situation and that Ellie and I can come to some sort of terms with her attitude.