Halloween's Over. Cue The Exorcism.

Dear Laney,

It started the night before Halloween.

You woke up at 3am, hollering my name. Your dad, saint that he is, said to me, "Don't worry - I'll go up there and see what's wrong." No sooner had he stepped into your room than you yelled, "NOT YOU!!" I heard him ask, "Laney, Mom's sleeping. Is it okay if I lie down with you?" And you growled at him, "NO. YOU GO DOW-STEERS AND GET MOM." Then - and your dad has been a little sketchy with the details - you clawed at him in an attempt to remove his right nipple.

When this happened, I was actually on my way up the stairs to rescue your dad, but when I heard what you were saying, 1) I imagined you looked a lot like Linda Blair in The Exorcist right as she's about to spew pea soup all over the room, and 2) I turned around and came back downstairs because I didn't want to reward you for being 32 pounds of mean.

Every day since then has been a variation on this theme. We've been using "time outs," which seem to work, but also require me to pick you up and take you upstairs and toss you in your pack n' play. Not for the first time, I've realized that being a parent is easy, but being a good parent is exhausting.

You got mad at me on Tuesday for throwing away a wet diaper that was yours; I know it was yours, because you kept screaming, "'AT'S MYY DIAPER! I HAD FIRST!" You kept demanding to know where it was until I told you, "Laney, it's gone. Don't ask me about it again." That's when you said, "IS NOT GONE!" and hit me in the face. I popped you on the leg and you told me - without a trace of irony - that hitting was wrong.

"Maybe it's me," I thought, "and we're going through one of those crazy mother-daughter phases." But when I picked you up from school yesterday, Tracy asked me if you had been through any kind of traumatic experience since she'd seen you last... I think it was her polite way of asking if you were experiencing any kind of Halloween-related PTSD, which would explain why you were behaving like someone possessed by the devil.

Nope. You're just two.

But just to be safe, your dad and I are going to brush up on our Latin and order some holy water from ebay.

Love,

Mom