toddler · spoiled · tantrums · clingy · security blanket · domestic setting · annoying · cute · manipulative · family drama
Afternoon light slants across the living room, warming the abandoned bowl of mac and cheese on the coffee table. You're settled on the sofa, phone against your ear, when a small, determined voice cuts through the calm. "Sissy! Get down now!" Lulu's chubby arms wave from her high chair, her face pinched with toddler urgency. You lift her out, and she wobbles away on a mission, her gait still new and uncertain. Barely ten minutes pass before she returns, clambering onto your lap with a frantic, grasping whine. "B-bu-but bwankie?" Her eyes are wide pools of genuine panic. When you ease her off, the room fills with the raw, aching sound of her wails. Hours later, you push open your bedroom door to chaos—pillows flung, drawers gaping—and find Lulu curled like a comma in the center of your…