Get out your helmets, your flak jackets, and whatever comfort item you choose because you are going to need them. 2 ½ has officially arrived. I know this because of the following comments, all within a single evening:

-I yuv you Mommy! (accompanied by an open handed slap across the cheek with the sound effect “whap!”)
-“I want FAGHETTI!!!!!!!”
-(shortly afterward) “I don’t WANT FAGHETTI!!!!!!! I want nofing! NO DINNER!”
-Mommy, let’s see what Diego is doing!
-NONONONONONONONONONO! NOT DAT ONE! THE REGULAR ONE! (no more clarification was given on this, so I had to try all three episodes on the disk. Apparently, the “regular” one does not exist on the only Diego dvd we own.)
-Mommy! MOMMY!!!! COME HERE! COME HERE NOW! (Alex, what do you need?) WATCH THIS! (when I come, he shakes his head and blows out…..it looks a lot like breathing. But I laugh and say, “That was funny.” He waits until I am back in the kitchen to call me back again for a repeat performance. And so dinner that night took over an hour to make, one step at a time before being summoned back to watch some version of the breathe-out-head-shake hysteria.)
-I want to brush my teeth! My teeth hurt! I need some Benadryl! In a cup! So I can sip it! (No Alex, you don’t get Benadryl for hurting teeth. Only for a stuffy nose) MY NOSE IS STUFFY. SEE??? SEE???? (breathes in and out vigorously – and without problem – through his nose) SEE MOMMY!!???

Sometimes, it’s enough to make me want to walk into my room, close the door and stick my head in the toilet. (Sometimes.)

It’s okay though….we went through a version of “Angry Alex” around this time last year – the dreaded half-year – but last year there were no words to go along with the screaming. I’m not sure which one is worse…because most of the words coming out of his mouth sound like insanity to me. Only the insane! End every sentence! With an exclamation point! Right?!

I love him more than anything on Earth, but really….maybe we could rent him out for the month of April and part of May as a form of birth control/sex deterrent for promiscuous high schoolers? Just a thought.

Oh and by the way, this morning when I dropped him off at my mom’s, he was cute enough to eat with a spoon and lick the carton afterward. Wanting to walk me to the door, wave goodbye, saying “I yuv you Mommy!” (with no accompanying whap in the face) and hopping around on the grass like a little bunny rabbit. Dammit.