DS is 2.5 and has gone from being the sweetest child to being an autocrat with a cute smile. His demands are CONSTANT- more peanut butter, more trampoline, read the book, juice, juice in a different cup, outside, inside, mama, mama, mama, mama.... He is also quite whingy, but most especially around me. He whines and gets grumpy like a little thundercloud if I so much as look at him in a way he doesn't like- evidently he doesn't do this so much around DH, and not at all around my parents.

DH keeps asking me if something is wrong with him, and implying that he whinges around me so much because I pay attention to it. I say he is just a normal toddler, and that kids just tend to act up around their mum a bit more.

But the constancy of it is wearing me and my confidence thin, and I am suddenly wondering if I am A Bad Parent and have somehow created my very own evil dictator. It doesn't help at all that we just went away with a family who's two young daughters are self-entertaining and eat whatever is put in front of them.

Does this sound like a normal toddler or have I gone wrong somewhere? I should add that DH and I are both fairly consistent and firm on boundaries for DS, so I don't *think* its a discipline/ boundaries issue, but at the end of a long day of feeling like a marionette, its pretty hard to think clearly!