Alone

Where to start... where to start.  I don't even know where to start.

I've had it UP TO HERE with Porter.  I am throwing my hands up... tossing in the towel.  I surrender.  I don't know what to do with the kid anymore. 

I feel like I'm always portraying him to be this awful demon child.  He isn't, really... but his naughtiness seems to suffocate my life. While he can make me laugh and he is the most clever little dude... at the same time he so easily drive me up the wall.

I should write down all the things he does... the things he gets into.  I should write them down for a week and bullet-list them here and your jaw would drop.  Seriously.

Porter got sick on the way home from Preschool so I left work early to pick him up.  I made a doctor's appt for him (4pm) and let him lay on the couch and watch a movie instead of napping.  I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to him bouncing around. 

With chocolate all over his face.

Turns out he'd pushed the barstool over to the freezer and eaten two of the Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches.  Yes... the low fat ones that cost like $5 for the package of 6. 

I scolded him and told him he is NOT to get into the fridge or freezer without asking.  Not kidding... the kid will help himself to string cheese and go through a 12 pack in 2 days.  And string cheese is not cheap, either.

The rest of the evening goes on and he keeps dinking with the cat... trying to pick it up and ever time he's near Ella I hear her meow an irritated "leave me alone" meow.  After telling him for the 5th time to leave her alone I spanked him. He cried.  He called me a bully.  Blah blah blah.

Dinner time.... the kid needs velcro.  He's up and down and up and down.  I need to just be more consistent and just take his food and throw it away the first time he gets up but instead I find myself warning him once or twice and then finally yelling at him to stay in his seat.  That's an easy enough fix, I suppose.

Then he turns his fork into a catapult and flung cucumber across the dining room.  He continued after I scolded him so I took his fork away.  We were eating chicken and rice... big surprise he never got around to eating his rice b/c he had no fork.

All night it was whine whine whine.  (I should have had some wine wine wine, I guess!!!) He's been throwing these toddler-like tantrums lately... tantrums you'd expect from a 2 year old.

I put the boys in the bath because I was done.  Done being mommy tonight.  I got them in the bath and only had to tell Porter about 5 times to stop bugging his brother in the bath.  Don't dump water on him.  Don't spray water out of your mouth at his face.  Stop laying in the tub and pushing your brother to the end of the tub.  Don't take his toy. 

I finally got them out, got their pj's on and told Porter to go play downstairs or in his room while I read Hudson a book and put him to bed.   I enjoyed my quiet time with Hudson and wished our day had more of that peacefulness rather than whining, yelling, tantrums and scolding.

I went downstairs to find Porter eating ANOTHER ice cream sandwich.  I about flipped.  There was ONE single Skinny Cow sandwich left... and I hadn't eaten a single one (and neither had Ryan or Cam...).  I told him to get his toys picked up and get up to bed. 

 I turned around to find the cute heart garland I'd made yesterday ripped down from the curtain. I asked him if he did it and he confessed.  I asked why.... he told me because he didn't want it up there.  And I had JUST explained to him yesterday that we had to be very careful with it.  He helped me carry it upstairs and put it on the curtain rod and I explained how the thread was thin and we couldn't pull or step on it or it'd break. 

That was my last straw.  I dragged him upstairs and tossed him into bed without a story.  I took away his lightbulb in his lamp (he likes to sleep with his little lamp on) and shut the door.  He cried and yelled downstairs that I was being a bully to him. 

I don't know what to do, short of putting a child leash on him and making him follow me around the house.  I can't be near him every second and I've tried making him sit in the room with me while I cook dinner etc... so he doesn't fight with Hudson or doesn't have the chance to be mean to the dog/cat but it never fails I get sidetracked and forget to make sure he sits there. 

Do I have to freaking take away every stool and chair in my house so he stops getting up on the counters and into things?

WHAT DO I DO?  I feel like I'm so alone... no one else I've ever talked to has or has had a child like Porter...  I don't mean to make him out to be a bad kid but he's so curious and independent and that gets him into trouble.  I hate that he doesn't listen to rules when I tell him not to get into things... its like he disregards any boundaries I set. 

PLEASE HELP before I lose my mind. 

**ETA**

We have tried taking away toys.  He doesn't necessarily have a favorite toy... he plays with trucks.  And we have like 50 million cars/trucks so if one is taken away he typically shrugs it off and moves onto another one.  We do take away toys if he throws them or there is a fight over a certain toy.  But... its not uncommon for Porter to again, take a stool up to the entertainment center or the top of the fridge when we're out of the room and get the toy.  I don't have all the time in the world to keep tabs on toys in "time out" and I often don't realize he's reclaimed a toy until later in the day when he's already been playing with it for hours.