I now have two sets of eyes.

When I was a toddler/little kid, my parents used to say they had eyes in the back of their heads. As an imaginative child, I had some very interesting visions of eyes hiding behind their hair that pop out whenever it was convenient for them.

Yesterday, I learned the true meaning of this phrase.

Angelica was just on a roll last night. I sent a very happy kid to daycare and somehow was sent home with a grumpy monster. She pushed every single one of my buttons and fortunately, I was able to keep my cool with her...but by the time she went to bed, my last nerve was shot. The evening just got off to a bad start. I got to daycare to pick her up and was already flustered, so I'm sure she picked up on my mood. I had been sitting in a traffic jam thanks to rubberneckers checking out an accident, and it took me about an hour to get there. To add to my anxiety level, after a very enthusiastic greeting, she proceeded to have a temper tantrum before I could even get her in the car.

And screamed all the way home.

And when we got home, she didn't want me to get the mail, so she had a temper tantrum on the front lawn. And then decided to "run away". She took off down the small cul-de-sac on which we lived, and in a very angry voice with arms crossed, she said, "GO AWAY Mommy, I go now!"

So I picked her up and carried her in the house. Which prompted another tantrum.

Then she noticed the scrape on her knee (which she got at daycare) and asked for "Dora boo-boo" (that's her word for band-aid).

So I got one for her, and opened it, which she saw and started screaming again, "NO! Angelica do it! Angelica pick Dora boo-boo! Angelica open it! Waaahhhh!"

I give her the box, she picks one, opens it, puts it on her leg (though not the one with the "boo-boo" on it). And then gets another. And another. She's happy, so I let her do it. She eventually starts sticking them on me. So I let her. Hey, she's happy.

After about 25 bandaids, I decide we need to at least save a few of them for real boo-boos, so I tell her we have to put them away.

Tantrum.

She asks for juice. (Remember, the doctor said no juice before dinner?) I tell her she can have some with dinner.

More tantrum.

She asks for chocolate milk. Again I tell her...she can have it with dinner.

I think you get the idea.

Eventually she asks to go outside and play in the pool, and needing a moment to just sit down and breathe, I take her outside. And when we're done, I get her into dry clothes, set her up with a video and start cooking dinner.

While I'm cooking, we have more tantrums. She finds a granola bar in my lunch bag, asks me to open it, I say no...so she rips it open with her teeth, takes a bite, and then throws pieces of it all over the house. She grabs a package of hot dog buns and takes a bite out of each one, then rips them up and throws them everywhere. I take it away, MORE TANTRUMS. While I'm prying it from her hands, her grilled cheese sandwich burns and I have to start over. (::exasperated sigh::)

So, at one point while I am cooking, it gets very, very quiet in the house. The video is over. The TV is silent. I hear no tantrums. I hear no movement. Given all the tantrums she'd had, you'd think I'd be breathing a sigh of relief...alas, there is a such thing as too quiet.

I peek around the corner, and Angelica has unplugged the stereo from the wall (something she has never, ever done before) and is playing with the outlet. ((Insert Heart Attack Here))

I run over, grab it from her, start saying, "Danger, Danger! Give that to Mommy! Danger, danger, danger!" At this point, she's now freaked out, scared and crying, which is probably a good thing since electrocution is something to be scared of.

But now I know. Eyes in the back of your head = The mommy instinct that kicks in when your toddler is TOO quiet and doing something they shouldn't.