Sigh

I was mostly kidding when I wrote the bad baby bubbleducks post about Sam hitting Jack and causing him to get stitches. Not kidding about the incident, but kidding about Sam being mean.

I have some bad news. I might have laughed too soon.

Jack was SUCH A CHALLENGING TODDLER. I cannot overstate this. He was mean to other kids. He bit EVERY kid in his path for a while, even if they just looked at him wrong. For a while, I couldn't take him to do anything where other kids were going to be. We are talking about like a six month span where he was basically quarantined and if he was taken out I regretted it. But we are talking about like a more than TWO YEAR span in which he was not to be entirely trusted around other children. It is only now, at four and half that I can rest reliably sure that he is not going to use physical force against another child if he disagrees with them over, say, what shape a leaf is, or who should have a red ball vs. a blue one.

I was SO SO SO hoping to avoid this fate the second time around. You know the kids at the playground who sit calmly off to the side and sort of observe everyone else while sucking their thumb? I would LOVE that child. It would mean no embarrassed apologies, no constant vilegence, and no debates about whether or not to bite him back.

Sam was the easiest baby in the world. We were so pleased with ourselves. Oh, he is going to be just the opposite of Jack, we said. Easy at every turn. Lies all lies. He is a crazy toddler, just like J was. He might even have MORE energy and certainly a higher propensity for upending full buckets of toys and making messes. He is fighting me on his afternoon nap. He's teething and not happy about it.

We went to a playgroup today with about 15 toddlers. I saw my future with him, laid right out in front of me. Nuts. The kid was nuts. I actually heard myself say "Sam, don't be a bully" within the first two minutes. He stole toys. He threw balls at kids. He tried to hit a baby. He tore off down the hall with a forbidden cup of M&Ms. He took at least 6 kids' sippy cups.

At one point, a lot of kids were quietly (quite is relative here) playing in the living room and he sort of stood up in the center of it all and turned around in a circle. I got an eerie feeling that he was surveying the landscape to see what kind of havoc he could possibly reek next.

And so here we are. Just please please let us NOT let the biting begin.