Berries. Berries berries berries. Berries in a bowl.

Our little daughter Ev is 18 months old as of this week.

She is so wonderful, sweet, verbal, loving, intelligent and fun to be with.

(Do you hear the "but" coming? It's just hanging there in the air, isn't it?)

BUT. Toddlerhood is definitely here. And that means our sweet-natured, lighthearted little darling has begun vigorously asserting her own wants and desires. And her wants and desires are sometimes completely NUTS.

Late yesterday morning, my husband went outside to wash our cars, given that it was a rare 60 degree day in January. I decided Ev and I should take advantage of the weather and have some outside time also.

We just moved to a house in the country (sort of, not really) with a kind of an amazing yard. Nearly an acre, and some of it is wooded. Since we moved here in the fall, the weather hasn't been very conducive to exploring outside, so I was excited to get to go out with Ev and check stuff out. It rained a ton here on Saturday, so this morning everything was mucky and wet. We have kind of a swampy yard and a gravel driveway, and I realized within the first few moments of having Ev outside with me that the possibility of her NOT getting muddy was pretty limited. Still, it wasn't super warm out, so I didn't relish the idea of her being soaking wet. Being one-and-a-half, she relished the idea very greatly. "No big deal," I told myself. Childhood is about getting messy and exploring and having fun, right? So I gritted my teeth as I watched her splash through a giant mud puddle. Why did we have to do this on a day when her clothes actually MATCHED?

Then she found the largest, pointiest stick she could possibly carry. It was not a nice straight walking-type stick. It was a Y shaped stick, with lots of other baby Y's attached to it, and so it was completely unwieldy, and as she walked beside me, she waved it around and whapped me in the legs repeatedly. Oh, this is fun. She is exploring nature. How fun, how very fun. My jaw began to hurt from the way I was clenching it.

I mentioned those woods, right? Well they are full of sticks, and pinecones, and piles of leaves camouflaging ankle-twisting holes. There are tiny holly bushes all over the place, and a woodpile that I can't help but believe holds a snake family, and even some old boards and bricks back there left by the previous owner. After satisfying her desire to soak her feet in a mud puddle in the driveway, Ev charged through the gate and into the wooded part of our property, still carrying that terrible stick, and proceeded to lumber over logs and bushes and directly into a patch of holly and wild rosebushes before I could stop her. She was unscathed. I was kind of panting by this point.

Let's go into the front yard! No pointy plants there. So we tromped into the (unfenced) front yard, at which point she made a beeline for the street. The street, the glorious street! We've been on a few short walks since we moved here, mostly in the stroller. But today she was free to run, with just my hand to protect her from cars. "We hold hands in the street!" I said, my voice going up at the end. She was determined to walk up and down in front of our house 22 times, dragging the terrible stick, and sometimes sit down and play with the tiny gravel in the street, even almost hazarding a taste of said gravel. "We don't sit in the street," I sing-songed, beginning to feel like Mary Poppins on a bad trip. "Oh, no, we don't sit in the street."

I could go on, but you get the point.

By the time we got inside and got our hands washed (after a short tantrum centered around her perception that we were using the wrong soap) I was exhausted, annoyed, and kicking myself. What the heck is wrong with me? I wondered. Why couldn't I just enjoy that? We bought this wonderful house partly because our family loves to spend time outside, and we got tired of having to drive to a park every time we wanted to have an excursion. So why did this little outing end up being so stressful? Am I just the grumpiest mom alive? Were the neighbors watching me wrangling with her, and judging me? (I kept having to pick her up like a sack of potatoes just to keep her out of the neighbor's yard or the middle of the street.) Why couldn't I control her better? Did I look like an idiot? It's not like I'm not experienced at this... didn't I learn anything from my first kid? AM I an idiot?

All these thoughts were running through my head as I washed her strawberries. And the whole time I was washing her strawberries, she was sitting on the floor, moaning pitifully. "Berries," she whimpered. "Berries. Berrrrries. Berrrries in a booooowwwwl."

I'm telling you, people. I am not a slow person. I tend to do things very efficiently and quickly. However, at 18 months, she wants everything right now, right now, right now. And I feel like a total jackass for being annoyed. Because this is just how kids are, right? This is just developmentally appropriate. And yet, there is still a part of me that screams inside. Instead of screaming on the outside, I foolishly tried to reason with her. "I'm doing it, Ev. I'm washing them right now. Do you see that I'm doing this? They are coming. Mommy is coming. I'm going as fast as I can."

I got her lunch onto her plate and got her strapped into her booster seat, and I sat down with a sigh. I stared into my coffee, remembering when my older daughter was this age. I was a single mom then, and she was so smart and strong-willed, and our toddler/mom battles were epic. I had promised myself that this time around I would be wiser, more even-keel. I would slow down and enjoy. I would not make a big deal over little things that ultimately didn't matter. (So what if she got muddy?) I would not worry incessantly that people were judging my mothering skills. So what was going wrong here?

Of course, all Ev needed was a good lunch and a nap, and her spirits lifted considerably. Mine started to lift too, but intellectually I still grappled with my irritability.  I adore my daughters and I savor my time with them. Still, sometimes I find myself being so annoyingly human.

It's human, isn't it, to get frustrated by being hit repeatedly with a small stick, whether literally or figuratively? Sometimes parenting a toddler feels like being hit lightly with a smallish stick all day. No one blow really hurts, but by the end of the day, or in my case, the middle, you start to get pretty worn down.

The fact that parenting small children is joyful, and a blessing, does not mean that it is not very hard. The fact that we get annoyed when our children are beating us about the knees does not mean we are bad parents or we love them less. It's not an either/or... it's a both/and. Both elements were present on our little jaunt outside. Intellectually I know this, but remembering that fact and absolving myself from the associated guilt is what ultimately allowed me to snap out of it and turn my Sunday around.

For me, parenting has always been about finding my zen. Sometimes I think I couldn't find zen if it came up and zenned me in the face. But I have to keep trying -  reminding myself to move through that gut, human reaction into another, wiser, calmer place. It's not easy for me. At all, at all. I want to control everything about every situation and every interaction, especially when it comes to my kids. I want it to go my way. My kids have forced me to work on letting go of that ultimately unhealthy attitude.

I guess I thought by now I'd be a pro at this; somehow I would have risen above it all. I realize upon reflection that that, too is an unrealistic expectation of myself. And that by beating myself up in the moment, I'm simply making everything that much worse - raising my own stress level, which in turn impacts the way I'm parenting.

It's amazing how we can think we've learned a lesson, only to have the universe circle us back to the beginning and whisper, "Learn it again."