My daughter, the werewolf

On certain nights, my daughter, normally humanoid, turns into a werewolf. Just last night, she stripped down to her humanoid birthday suit and started howling, drooling, pawing at the moon, basically resembling an animal with rabies. As usual, we were half-scared, half-amused, and 100% dreading the time between that moment and bedtime. At least 1 1/2 hours of werewolf joy.

You see, my daughter is nearly 4 years old and in that awful stage of desperately needing a nap and desperately fighting it. No one ever prepared me for how horrid this stage is.

The transformation is sudden. She'll give no signs of impending humanoid failure when something snaps, triggering the beast inside. There will be a loss of reason, civility, and decency. There will be lying on the floor, flailing arms, and kicking feet. There will be crying. A lot of crying. And, despite us knowing that the most important thing is to get her into bed asap, we are delayed by all of the above.

At least on the weekends, we'll know whether she napped or not and can prepare to minimize beast damages. But, during the week, we'll usually not know whether she was able to sleep at preschool or not, putting us at a huge disadvantage. The element of surprise is not in our favor.

To cope, my husband and I exchange many glances throughout the 1 1/2 hours of werewolf joy. Sometimes our eyes will be filled with fright, with disbelief, or with silent encouragement. We drink heavily with dinner. And we always stick together to tag team it. So far, no one's died.

I'm looking forward to the day when there's no longer a reason for the werewolf to come and take over our usually sweet, delightful girl. Until then, send wine.

Original DC Metro Moms Blog post. KC also writes at Where's My Cape?