The Terribles

My beloved Baylie Rose is starting to go through the terrible twos.  She is a happy little angel until she doesn't get her way and then she is a tiny but terrible ball of fury, but Alas, she is not the subject of this post.  Morgan, who seemed to begin the terrible twos at 17 months, had a bit of a lull at 3, has taken it up a notch since Baylie was born.  Though she has struggled with listening at home, she has always managed to be a model of politeness and caring elsewhere; garnering mind boggling compliments to those of us with her at home, but recently, she has been having trouble listening at school, she bit her best friend, and today she threw ice in her school friends face, even after he was crying for her to stop.

After the teacher met me in the drop off line, on the way home from school, I cried.  I have never been more shocked and disappointed as a parent.  Now you all know that I don't have perfect control of my temper, that I raise my voice more than I should, and I confess, on a couple of occasions I have slapped my daughter across the face before I even thought about what I had done.  Terrible thing to confess in a blog, I know, but I have to own what is my hand in this.  Sick and ashamed, I had to ask my small daughter for forgiveness. It is no justification, I know, but breaking the pattern of parenting in anger that you grew up with is no easy task.  Though that was quite some time ago now, I imagine it is something she won't soon forget, and I never will, but on the whole, we have tried very hard to be consistent loving parents.  We have taught our children about Christ's love and forgiveness, even when that means sucking it up and admitting that we need it as well.  We have read all the right books, and try to do all the right things.  We have had many conversations about kindness and bullying.  Yet as I write this, I can not understand why, from the beginning this child has been a challenge to me unequal to any other challenge in my life, and why she would behave this way when she knows right and wrong.  I do know, a good deal of it comes down to attention.  I feel like even though I am a stay at home mom, I will never have enough to give; she always needs more, and yet every time we take her aside to do something special, she acts out immediately afterword in spectacular fashion.  Also, when we calmly explain the consequence she has earned, she often respond punitively, :Well then I'm gonna______"

This is a post written in desperation! Can those slaps across the face when mommy lost control be enough to cause all this??? It seems like nothing we do has any effect, that  getting her way is the only ruling force in her mind.  She doesn't seem to grasp the cause and effect of having earned the consequences, though we talk to her about it, she always says that it is us not being nice.
Am I a terrible mother???  How can I get through to her before it is too late? I will never be perfect enough to never raise my voice.  Am I doomed to ruin my children?  If so, why is God giving us another one? Help!!!