This blog might be called "Must Love Babies," but no one said I had to love toddlers.
My friend Karen loves toddlers, two year olds in particular, and she has a motto: They're not "terrible" twos, they're TERRIFIC twos!
I have a motto, too, it's called Punch Karen in the Face.
See the sweetness? Look out, it's a trick!
My oldest daughter, Josie, who is about to turn the big 3-1 (in months), doesn't know it but she is thisclose to being sold to the gypsies. She is killing us. I know, the terrible twos and I should have been expecting it and all that, but oh the humanity. She is a ball of emotional barbed wire right now and she's blowin' like a tumbleweed through our tiny house every single day. You have to constantly be on the lookout, ready to jump out of the way when she comes rolling into the room.
As I type, she is fake crying in her crib, trying to get either me or her father to come in, at which point she will request the "black pillow" (no such thing exists in our house). We will tell her to get over it, re-tuck her in, and leave. She will fake cry again and when we go in, she will indicate her pacifier is behind the crib. We will retrieve it and re-re-tuck her in. She will cry again and this time she won't like the Christmas lights that are glowing through her closed curtains. Or maybe she will insist we close the door, and when we do, she will insist we keep it open. Or maybe she will be hot, or cold, or thirsty. Or maybe she will want the stuffed animal dog that sits on her bookshelf, and when we give it to her, she will realize she really wanted the stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog, and when we switch it out for her she will remember she actually wanted the stuffed animal dog that sits on her bookshelf.
She has temper tantrums and throws herself on the floor and turns herself into a rag doll when you try to pick her up. She doesn't want her sister to have ANYTHING; every single toy, book, stuffed animal, crayon or anything else that is remotely fun is HERS and even if she is buried under every other toy in the house, if she sees her sister about to touch the last lonely unclaimed toy, she throws a fit because don't you people get it?? It's HERS!
She will only eat chicken nuggets, yogurt, fries, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pancakes, bacon, blueberry waffles, oatmeal, french toast, some fruit and salty snacks. She refuses any food that could be construed as anything other than what I just listed. If you try to get her to eat other foods that any normal child would BEG FOR (like grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, candy, cookies, ice cream, you get the idea) she says, "no? ok." and you better believe the conversation is over.
She is destructive. She is less interested in playing with the hundreds of items that make up her play kitchen, that would be boring! She wants to systematically trash the kitchen by flailing her arms back and forth in the vicinity of the kitchen until there is nothing left on any surface. Then, instead of playing with the pieces or picking them up and replacing them, she simply leaves the room. At some point, you decide to pick up each individual piece and lovingly replace it in its rightful spot, foolishly thinking modeling the desired behavior will adjust her perspective. What you don't realize is that your arch enemy must be spying on you around the corner, laughing dismissively on the inside, and within 90 seconds your little 2.5 year old tornado will be back, destroying what you have just painstakingly recreated.
mmmmmmm puzzle pieces
She chews on the corners of her books. She rips pages out, then hands them to you and says, "mommy fiss it (fix it)." You do. You tape it perfectly back in place. She smiles sweetly, sits down with her new fissed book, and rips out a different page.
She tells you no when you give her a directive, she selectively ignores you, she undermines your authority by requesting time out, she runs away from you, she kicks at you, she throws the things you ask for on the floor as if to say, "there ya go, there's your precious sunglasses, go get 'em if you want 'em so bad." And then when you go to reach for them, she stomps on them. (Ok, I made that last bit up, but it honestly wouldn't surprise me if she tried that one, too.) She's mean and cruel and exasperating and exhausting.
Just when you are ready to throw in the towel and spend the rest of your life drunk and oblivious on the couch in your bathrobe while she does whateverthehellshewants, you do something smart for the first time in all this chaos: you attempt to seek understanding.
This is what I did. I googled "my toddler is making me want to kill myself crazy" and I got a bunch of hits that were actually helpful. I have decided to include a few light reading links for anyone else who may be going through toddler hell:
How to Discipline During the Terrible Twos
Handling the Terrible Twos, Threes, Fours
Why Are Two-Year-Olds So Difficult?
Getting Through the Terrible Twos
There is some good info in those articles, as well as some piece of mind. I don't know about you, but it makes me feel validated (read: better) to know that it is NOT just me or my kid, that others go through this exact same thing. Even just that knowledge buys me a little bit of patience when dealing with Josie. But the biggest thing I took away from reading these articles is that NO, she doesn't hate us and she doesn't just want to make our lives wretchedly horrible; she is really going through something that is just as hard on her as it is on us. That her fits are really internal struggles. That she does want to make us happy but she also wants to make herself happy, and those things might clash and she doesn't know how to handle it yet. Empathy is going to be my best weapon in fighting these battles, I think.
Which is not to say I have it all the time. I am still working on remembering to be "understanding" when Josie is trying to kick me in the face in a rage of hot tears, but hey, practice makes perfect.
Maybe I'll have perfected it by the time she turns three. Just in time for her sister's turn.
