Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Is 4.5 the new terrible twos?

This is more of a vent than anything else but The last couple of weeks have been exhausting! DS4.5 has a comment about everything, anything I tell him he refuses to do (verbally refuses and then sometimes turns around and does what I asked anyways), everything is an act of serious negotiation ("we're leaving in 10 minutes" ... "NO! I need 20 minutes!" ..."do this ..." "Can I do this instead?"... you get the picture!). And to top it off, the last two weeks anything he needs he tells me in a series of CLUES! I feel like I'm doing nothing else but guessing what it is he wants! When he's hungry he says "I want something that's small and oval and juicy" (why can't he just say GRAPES???) or "I want something that's almost like a triangle and red and juicy" (can we just call it STRAWBERRIES???). EVERYTHING is a guessing game here and he gets frustrated when I don't know what he wants and even more frustrated when I just don't have the time and patience to play this little game of his. I feel like my brain is fried! Please, tell me it's just a phase and it won't be like this forever? And OMG how upset he gets when he realizes you were not listening to him! I feel like we are always just a half a step away from major tantrum. I'm exhausted from having to think all the time!