He's going to kill me

Matthew has to be the most stubborn kid I've ever known in my life!! I should have known it would be this way because he started off stubborn

I had always heard that you don't labor as long with the second child. And considering how Ethan was induced and I labored for a total of 5 hours, I begged the doctors to induce me with Matthew so I wouldn't have him in the car on the way to the hospital. My effort was fruitless but because he decided to hang out past his due date they were forced into it.

Even then, this child was stubborn. I labored for about 10 hours. Double what it took to deliver Ethan! When they broke my water, this child grabs onto the umbilical cord and says "No, I'll just hang out up here at the chandelier". He stayed so high I was worried they were going to have to do a c-section. But when he decided to come out, I went from 5-6 to 10 centimeters in less than 45 minutes.

Next he was late doing everything developmentally. He rolled over late, crawled late, walked late. It was all very frustrating to me because Ethan did all that very early.

And Matthew tests me. We've had this 'you can't play in the dog food' fight for a year now. Popping his hand doesn't stop him and neither does a pop on the butt. I just had to step away from writing this blog to pop his hind end because of the dog food. It's a never ending battle and I seriously don't think I will ever win. I'm gonna have a 13 year old playing in the dog food!!

And this kid can break things like no other. He pulls vents up out of the floor. He's bitten all the little rubber stoppers off the bottom of my coasters. I've had to glue them back on more times than I can count. He presses the buttons on the washer and dryer. He plays with the dental floss and Q-tips every single time you leave the bathroom door open. His main goal between 7:30 & 8:00 AM is to knock my glass of water from last night backwards on my nightstand so that I have to move the nightstand to dry it all up. He has almost zero interest in actually playing with his toys. 99% of the time they are ammunition. He thinks it's fun to pull my silverware drawer out into the floor. Then he proceeds to choke himself with a baby spoon. He unrolls the toilet paper every chance he gets. I can't even step away from the computer for 2 seconds before he makes a B-line for it. And Lord forbid he gets ahold of it because it'll take me an hour to fix what he just did. And he won't hold my hand if his life depended on it. He would rather sit down and scream as to hold my hand in a store or parking lot. He gets carried a lot!

I don't want to feel like I have to put everything of value to me up so my child won't break it. Ethan learned what he could and could not play with. Why can't Matthew do the same? I feel like if I'm not on top of him he's into something.

He's also the most scared kid I've ever met. He's only now just warming up to haircuts and he's been getting them for a year now. He doesn't like to stand on the scale at the doctors office. He cries and jumps off. He doesn't want to stand still long enough to get measured. He freaked out, cried and screamed because of the blood pressure cuff. He hated the band-aid they gave him after his finger prick.

And now, because of his stubbornness, he's got to get an evaluation from a speech therapist because he refuses to talk. I know he knows what I'm saying. He just won't repeat or even try to repeat. I've just quit paying him any mind when whines for something. It's not making the words come along any faster though.

He has to be the one most difficult child in the world. No wonder I'm exhausted all the time.