What happened?

When the not-so-little one was a toddler, she breezed right through the terrible two's, thumbing her nose at them as if to say, "Not me!" She was a wonderful toddler, and I foolishly thought I had something to do with it. As if I had unearthed some deep, dark, highly-coveted secret to parenting toddlers. When her sister, the little one, came into the world, I knew I had everything under control. After all, I was Supermom, able to leap small two-year-olds in a single bound. Alas, the little one proved me wrong 10 times over. She followed all the rules of terrible two-dom, and invented a few of her own. (I fished her out of the fireplace twice...) I removed the little one from the fireplace, threw the parenting book I was writing directly into it, and used it to bake my humble pie...

Then they started school. I began to get those nasty little notes from the teachers telling me that my sweet, quiet, self-sufficient firstborn was talking - a lot! She was disrupting the classroom. And yet the little one wasn't bringing home those notes. She was allegedly an angel. Huh?! No way! This was the polar opposite of what we were experiencing at home. Those teachers were obviously whack. Maybe they had the two mixed up somehow. Oh, wait, they aren't the same grade level...........

As if all of that weren't confusing enough, they've turned the tables on me. The not-so-little one has become argumentative (we call her the Negotiator), demanding, defiant, and just plain ol' gripy. At home. She seems to have conned the teachers into thinking she is perfect. The little one, on the other hand, is helpful, sweet, and generally easy going. At home. Now she's bringing home those nasty little notes...

What's the deal?! How did this happen? How am I supposed to function in such a chaotic system? Doesn't it seem to you other parents out there that the rules keep changing? Sheesh.... well at least for now all is calm on the home front. They're asleep.