Can't wait for vacation!

We are leaving for New Jersey the day after tomorrow. I can not wait. First of all... I am exhausted. And hot. I can't wait for cooler weather, and lots of hands and people to entertain Olivia for me. Today was actually a fairly good day. I don't usually use my blog as a place to complain, but right now I'm going to just vent.

First of all, this little girl 16 months, going on 16 years, has learned the art of throwing herself onto the floor and screaming her head off if something isn't quite so. For example, I went to give her a peice of bread, but right before handing it to her I decided to break in half. This was definitely not what she wanted, at all. And instead of just a "No." It was a full out fit. Fortunately these moments only last about 1 minute if completely ignored. Like, I leave the room ignore. She usually gets up and is her cheerful self again as soon as there is no attention. But I'm not sure this is the best thing to do. Am I letting her just get away with acting like a monster? And this strategy def would not work in public.

Then there's anytime we are around other children. She is not very nice. Well I take that back, she loves to give hugs and kisses and can be very sweet. But if you go near anything she's touched ever expect to get pinched, or hit and the object to be pulled from your hands while hearing her shout, "MINE!". Or if you are just playing innocently, she may come over and tackle you just for the fun of it. Most of the time I think this is innocent, but I'm still debating.

And then there are our sleep issues... which could be the root of these other problems? I am not sure. But she goes to bed around 7:30 or 8, wakes up around 6:30 or 7 (more like 6:30 lately). I know that's plenty of sleep for the night. But for naps, she is only sleeping about 45 minutes, an hour if I'm lucky. I have tried absolutely everything you could imagine. There is a quilt thumbtacked over her window to block out the sun. We have used white noise. We have used silence. We swim for over an hour before nap time. Plus lots of other playing. We have tried earlier, we have tried later. Nothing seems to effect it. Sometimes out of the blue she will sleep for almost 2 hours (this hasn't happened in about 3 months). I rack my brain trying to figure out exactly what we did, and try to replicate it, to no avail. I started just making her stay in her crib for the full hour no matter when she woke up. So most days she'd cry for about 20 minutes until I came to get her. Today I decided to go to her at the first sound of a whimper. I just patted her back and shushed her, and lo and behold she fell back to sleep! For about 20 more minutes, but still she fell back to sleep! So that might be my new strategy, and maybe eventually she will just stop waking up. We'll see.

And then theres the, what I would think to be "normal toddler issues". Such as emptying out every drawer she can reach. Pulling all the books off of all the shelves. Coloring on the table. Wanting to be in my arms every time I need to be doing something else, like looking at facebook cooking dinner. Etc, etc, etc.

But then in the same breath she melts my heart with kisses, and cutest little words, and watching her play with her dolls, and all that cute stuff. I guess that's motherhood for ya. How do we stay sane?? Like I said, I can't wait for vacation.