To know her is to love her. Sometimes.

Malia has been... an interesting child lately. There's something going on in her noggin and I can't figure out what. She's usually a very fun, bright, engaging person to hang out with. I love playing with her and listening to her talk about her princess play. Her imagination is amazing.

That's the way she is usually. The other side of her is dark. So very dark. Very confusing too. Bouts of hysterical crying if looked at the wrong way. Periods of complete and utter mulishness. If I ask her to not do something (i.e. Please walk close to me; we're in the parking lot) she will purposefully go out of her way to do exactly that (i.e. slows her pace and walks waaayyy to the side of me, in the parking lot). I've toyed with saying the exact opposite of what I want so she'd unwittingly do what I want her to do, to see what would happen but she's so unpredictable that there's no way to guessing what she'd do. So it's better to not say anything at all. But come on: I'm a mom, I must say something!

And that's her attitude towards me. I pity poor Kael. She's an absolute witch and a half to him. Unfortunately, she knows she's kind of got a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card where they are concerned. She's being disciplined more but it's usually Kael that I have to talk to. Why? Where's the fairness? you ask. Well, Kael is older and has a better understanding of his moods and reactions. Malia is like a crazy pre-pre-pre-pre PMS psycho person trapped in a 3 year old body. I might as well try to reason with a Tasmanian devil defending a meal.

Case in point: their bedtimes. The past couple of weeks Malia's been a nightmare. Our bedtime routine hasn't changed but for some reason, she's been real antsy, antagonizing poor Kael. Little things like tapping on the wall. Kicking his bed (they have a bunk). Tossing her toys up on his bed. Thumping the side of his bed with a pillow. You all know Kael: he's a pretty routine kind of kid and anything weird will throw him off kilter. A few times I've come out from the shower to see stuff on the floor piled in front of their bedroom door: her pillow, her stuffed animals, random toys.

What the heck??

Sometime later, the door opens again, then quietly closes. I go to investigate. It's Kael. He's the one dumping stuff out. Apparently, he's had to climb down from his bed, confiscate the whatever thing Malia was using to irritate the living snot out of him, and toss it out the room.

Malia's upset, she's trying to pull her loot back into her bed. He's mad at her, telling me what happened. And I feel so bad for Kael. He's tired, he wants to sleep. He's got a full day of school and he's dealing with this crap at 9:30pm. So of course Malia gets in trouble. That results in her crying (and not the usual crying, we're talking the screaming hysterical banshee crying), which makes noise level significantly worse than before.

Oi.

Tonight was such a night. I've stripped her of 2 pillows, Purple Tiger, Mermaid pillow, Pink Horsey (ouch!) and a ball (?? what was that doing in her bed??). There was some protest thumping of the wall -- or maybe it was her bumping against the wall since I took away her pillow bumper -- but it's finally all quiet.

She's probably plotting a midnight raid of her stuff. Sometimes her stuff mysteriously shows up back in her room in the morning....