Westley has been practicing being a two-year-old for months now: saying "no" as often as possible, throwing the occasional temper tantrum, insisting on doing things himself, and otherwise showing his independence from Rob and me. But on Halloween, the eve of his 23rd month, he was in rare form.Nothing either Rob or I did for him was right, and he let us know it. Loudly. He rejected every suggestion of food, clothing, and entertainment. When left to his own devices, he ran maniacally around the living room, shrieking delightedly for a few minutes before collapsing into the couch, completely miserable.
I'm usually pretty good about taking the philosophical stance on crazy-Westley days. I remind myself that everything with him is temporary. And most of the time, it actually helps me gain some perspective on the situation and not lose my cool entirely, no matter how certain I am that this time, I really, truly am going to go insane.But Halloween was different. We had plans to spend the afternoon with friends, tickets to an evening event, and demands from far-away family members for lots of pictures of Westley in costume. And when Westley refused to eat anything I offered him, and refused to wear his costume, and refused to have his picture taken, I felt like punching someone.
This day is supposed to be fun, I told myself. But I felt angry and anxious, even after Rob kindly took Westley on a guys-only grocery-shopping adventure.
The day eventually redeemed itself, even though we had to cancel some plans on account of our crazy-child-who-also-went-down-for-an-unbelievably-late-nap. Westley got some fresh, less-crazy energy from spending time with my parents. Rob and I got some fresh, less-stressed energy from not having to fight Westley on whether dinner would be eaten."What was up with him today?" I wondered, crossing my fingers that everything would be different when we got up in the morning.
Rob shrugged. "He's two."
"Not even!" I started to imagine a whole year of manic-Halloween-devil-Westley.
"Maybe he'll get it out of his system early," Rob hypothesized.
I just hope this really is as temporary as I try to convince myself it is. Because I don't know how much more Halloween I can take. 
