Not all sunshine and rainbows.

It's true. I'll be the first mom to profess my love for my little girl until the end of time. She is my precious daughter and all of my joy. However... she's one. And with the tender age of "one" you get attitude. Attitude, opinions and feisty, little fits. Most often, Elaina throws out the wild card of her behavior when she's tired. Either we get a cuddly, sweet angel who will fall asleep wrapped in a hug, or we get the world's most intolerable toddler; meaning she won't tolerate anything one minute past her bedtime. While I don't necessarily spend alot of time reflecting or reporting the 'tude sometimes expressed by our bundle of joy, it does occasionally rear it's ugly head and shows it's teeth.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Eric had just left to go bowling and Elaina and I settled on the sofa to look at her picture flashcards together. This is an activity that she most often enjoys. We got off to a bumpy start immediately when she didn't want Mommy to hold the cards or even look at them. She just wanted to throw the pile to the floor in a hasty fit. Since this wasn't the sweet scenario that I had anticipated, I resisted her attempt and held the cards a little bit tighter. Knowing she wasn't about to get her way, she squirmed off my lap, belly first and on her way down, met my forearm with her mouth. CHOMP. The brat bit me!

We've had a few biting incidents in the past (all with mommy, never daddy) and I've always retorted immediately by grabbing her hand and stuffing it into her mouth and pushing her chin up for her to bite her own hand. Pretty good way to discourage the biting, wouldn't you think? She got me good tonight.

On her way down to the floor, I smacked her face and told her that there is absolutely NO BITING! and that it is not nice. I picked her up by her arms long enough to make eye contact telling her this and then plopped her an arms length distance from myself and left her to cry out her fit. By this, I was hoping to convey the message that mommy wants nothing to do with a biter and she would have to get over her anger before she could come find me. She found me in the kitchen all of two minutes later as she walked her soggy tear face to the doorway and stopped to study my reaction to her. I acknowledged her and went about my business as she tried to suck up her tears and came running into my legs, with her mouth closed. (Truthfully, I was worried that she could turn vampire on me again.) With this, I caved into forgiveness and showed her my wound, explaining how she hurt me. At one point, I had to contain my laughter as she was just inhaling and literally just sucking up air with her jaw dropped and full while trying to regain her composure. I asked her if she was sorry for hurting mommy and assured her that mommy still loved her until the end of time with a warm, clingy hug. We were both better instantly.

Let's hope that this is the first and last biting story I'll have to share on her behalf. I think we established an understanding of sorts after the episode tonight.