Morale Needs to Improve

Starting the day with one eye barely cracked open and a Tiny Dictator already whining right into your ear is not the best way to start one's day, much less the week.

One of the parts about parenting that I loathe the most is 'Mean Mommy'.  Immediately having to become 'Mean Mommy' before I have even placed a foot on the bedroom floor never mind had my morning coffee is not going to win you any prizes.  Yet, here we are another start to a day beginning with crying.  I still don't know what she was so upset about. I never could get it out of her.

I wrote about the whining a few months back. I was at a loss, as was H.  The day after I wrote that post TD miraculously turned herself around. We breathed a sigh of relief that the terrible phase was over and moved on with our lives, finally feeling content for the first time in a few months.  We find ourselves back in the thicket of the whining woods.  We are lost in the dark as to what to do and finding that nothing we try eliminates it.  I'm sure that the idea of another sibling, a tired and sick mother does not help and has only caused this issue to resurface.  I feel to blame. 

And I still don't know what to do.  Being calm and explaining things ad nauseum doesn't work.  Talking about what we need and expect her to do beforehand doesn't work.  Time outs and punishments where toys and play time with friends or TV being taken away have no effect on her.  The freak outs, tantrums and all out scream-fest still occur.  What else is there?  Spare me the books you want me to read, if any.  I don't have the time.  I need advice and tried and true practices that worked on your child.  Muttering that "the beatings will continue until morale improves..." is only funny to H and I for so long. I also don't love the idea that I feel like I'm living with the little girl from the Exorcist, regardless of the fact that they share a name.