‘Ooo, you wait ’til she gets to the Terrible Twos!’ – If I had a fiver for every time someone has said that to me since Tori was born, I could go on holiday for a week.

What I want to know is why no-one told me that these so called ‘Terrible Twos’ start when they are about 13 or 14 months old. Which is well before they are two.

We are lucky, Tori is generally sweet natured and cheerful. Nine and a half times out of ten she has a smile for anyone and everyone and can be very easily amused, the rest of the time however…

Today, for example, has been a particularly bad day. Every single thing we have ever told Tori ‘no’ to – from pressing the buttons on the stereo to putting her hands on the radiator – she has done or tried to do. Repeatedly. And every time I or her Daddy have told her not to do whatever she is doing, she stamps to the middle of the room, sits down and headbutts the floor several times whilst wailing miserably. Then she gets up and does it all over again.

This is not like her at all; usually she 1. doesn’t do the mad headbutting thing, and 2. only tries things once more after being told off. I can count on one hand the amount of times Tori’s tantrummed to the point of going purple in the face and been utterly unconsolable. Or at least I could, until today.

Needless to say, I am tearing my hair out a bit this evening. What with my hormones being wildly out of control anyway due to ‘being bumpy’ (as my other-half affectionately says) I am quite ready to go hide in a box somewhere and throw my own tantrum. Or just stand in the middle of the room and cry, though I’ve already done that once today so I should maybe try a different tactic second time over…

Sadly Father-In-Law is round for his son to do his computer fixing duties so I am on solo baby-duty – Tori would no doubt love to help, however I’m sure posting fridge magnets into CD-drives is not the sort of ‘fixing’ they have in mind.

It is times like this that I turn to other ‘Mummy-Blogs’ and take reassurance in the fact that I am not alone in occasionally wanting to throw all my own toys out of the pram and sulk in a corner. Tori seems to have calmed down a bit now I’ve left her entirely to her own devices in her playpen – the first time all day this has worked – and I am beginning to feel like a rational human being again. Albeit a little on the frazzled side but I’m sure that’s nothing a couple of squares of chocolate can’t fix.

I have no doubt that tomorrow Tori will be back to her usual cheery self and today will be forgotten until the next time she decides to have a stroppy afternoon. Maybe it was the weather or maybe she was picking up on my mad pregnancy hormones, I don’t know. All I can say is I hope it stays the same when she hits the ‘Terrible Twos’ rather than getting worse because the bad days in the Terrible Ones are pretty bad!!