I have a toddler. The terrible twos have struck with avengeance, just a couple of weeks short of her third birthday.

After yesterday's battles, we started this morning with a ten minute struggle to get her out of her pyjama top. Note to self: hide the Winnie the Pooh pyjamas unless you have the Winnie the Pooh jogging suit ready to replace it. And possibly hide it anyway. Oddly, no battles over cleaning her eyes or her stoma - she held my hands and gently let me know when to dab and when to wait, and when her eyes felt clean. But then a major battle about cleaning her nose.

On to breakfast and she decided she wanted to be left handed. Fine; she had a bib from head to ankles and being left handed is slower for her (I have nothing against left handedness; I am a leftie myself. Little Fish is not!), so she'll take longer over her breakfast which will keep her in one place. Not a problem.

I wasn't going to argue over shoes. She's gone to school in purple slippers and they'll just have to live with it. I did win the battle over the hairbrush (although she scuppered that by immediately scruffing it all up again), and let her win the "I want to wear my coat now even though the bus isn't coming for another hour" battle.

And then, that done, she melted. Her whole body relaxed, she wanted Mummy cuddles, she wanted "me mummy's baby" cuddles, she wanted to be rocked and squidged and loved and kissed. Lovely. Then elected to go back into her chair to wait for the bus, and promptly had a final strop when the bus came as she went halfway down the ramp from the front door and refused to move any further, not helpful when I was following behind pushing Mog and the bus was waiting. I'll be glad when we get that lighter chair; lifting a 13kilo child in a 10kilo chair off a ramp and onto the grass is not fun.

All smiles and happiness once we were at the bus, "Bye Mummy, I need to get Mog to school now" and that was that! I'm assuming she's feeling a bit unsettled as we've been talking about how she's going to stay with Grannie and Grandad for a few nights - I really hope it is that and not the start of awful things. And I hope she doesn't give Grannie and Grandad too much of a taste of it either.

Mog meanwhile sat and looked superior. When Mog was a toddler and had finally stopped screaming, I used to push her and Goldy out and about side by side in their wheelchairs. Goldy used to get very excited and screeeeeeech and handflap. And Mog used to look up at me with an expression which very clearly stated "I can't believe the noise that child makes". She'd put that expression to rest for a few years, but it seems to have come out of storage for Little Fish's tantrums. I remind her that she did indeed make an awful lot of noise for quite a long time when she was younger, and that she does still kick up a stink in the middle of the night quite often. And she responds with a "but not in public, she's so embarrassing" glare. I have a five year old already well versed in teenage non-verbal speak. And a 2 year old ready to rule the world.

Be afraid. Be very afraid!
Tia