Hunter and Hyde

Friday afternoon my sisters, niece, nephew, Hunter and I headed out to Great Wolf Lodge to meet my mom and her boyfriend, Rich. Rich took all of us there for the night for my sister's birthday (the hubbies met us after work).

The kids were really excited on the way down. When we got there, we saw that my mom and Rich had reserved a big family sized room with a "kid's cabin" that had bunk beds for the kids. Hunter thought the bunk beds were soooo cool. After we checked out our room, we got in our swimsuits and went down to the waterpark section of the hotel (which is HUGE). Unfortunately this is where Hunter's sweet smiley face turned into our little whiny, fussy, teary toddler or as I like to refer to him, Toddler Hyde. Hunter looked like this for the majority of the day and night...
whether we were holding him or not, tears and whining persisted...

This is in no way related to Hunter's feelings about water parks. He actually enjoys the water most of the time. It's just that my child has decided to take on a new, not so attractive, temperment this past week (aka Toddler Hyde).

I tell myself daily that this is a direct result of the 3 molars that Hunter has cut over the past week and the 2-3 canines that are currently preparing to bust through his gums. He's had every symptom of teething known to man...diarrhea, a fountain of snot continuously pouring out of his nose, and my favorite part, irritability. Actually irritability isn't a good word to describe my son's general mood over the last seven days. Screaming, wailing, leg-stomping, arm-flailing, full on tantrum-throwing, bratty kid nearly 24-7 is more like it.

Like I said, I'm choosing to believe (or at least hope) this is COMPLETELY, TOTALLY, 100% due to the teething and is in no way, shape or form a preview of the terrible twos. Starting the terrible twos at 17 months is not my idea of fun. Yeah. Pretty much zero fun in that.

We finally decided to temporarily do away with the "pacis at bed and car time only" rule (just like we've done every.single.day this week...I know - good parenting skills all around), so our kid would stop the screaming already! and have some fun dangit! This appeared to be somewhat successful. I wouldn't necessarily classify these pictures as "smiley", but at least there's no tears or tantrums, right?My sisters graciously watched Hunter part of the time for us, so James and I could go ride the slides, and more importantly, take a break from our moody baby. Here Hunter's playing with his aunt and cousins in the kiddie area right before he notices we've come back.

Hopefully (for my sanity's sake) this week Hunter's alter-ego won't make as many appearances.