It's official, the Terrible Twos have arrived at our house.
Zoe put in some practice this past summer, working on her temper tantrums, shrieking, hitting, and general obstinance. Then she gave it a rest for the Fall and turned into the perfect good-natured little angel who followed me around being both agreeable and helpful. Although, I must admit, she did develop a rather stubborn view of what she considered acceptable clothing - 'hot' pink or purple usually. Then, about a week before her second birthday she started up with the tantrums and shrieking and, well... let's just say I've had a bad case of dejas vue ever since.
Theories about the terrible twos abound, but it seems to be a combination of cognitive development leaping ahead of language skills, learning the power of 'NO,' and starting to assert independance. When I think back on it, the end of Zoe's last (summer) bout of tantrums was followed closely by her vocabularly and communication skills taking a large leap. Despite having a four and a half year old, this stage is a new one to me. I don't recall Liam really entering a distinct phase that I recognized as 'the terrible two's'. This is probably mainly due to the fact that Liam has never really seen any advantage in asserting his independance - I mean why do something for yourself if the alternative is to be waited on hand and foot? And as for communication, he has always had a pretty big vocabulary for his age. Language acquisition is the one area in life that has never daunted him. The bigger the words the better! As a toddler he tended to spend his time absorbing new words rather than practice doing other things. Not that this made him an easy going two year old. In fact from day one he always seemed to have higher needs than other kids and his frustrations with life have always stemmed from both impatience and a desire to do things right the first time - bad combination. No, there really wasn't any discernable change in behaviour towards 'the terrible twos' with Liam.
Enter Zoe. A whole new whirlwind - ahem, world. Her tantrums are classic on-the-floor kicking legs, thumping hands. She hits, she pushes, and her shrieks could literally curdle blood. She's stubborn about just about everything when she gets in one of her moods. Thankfully this means that reverse psychology works pretty well if you are trying to get her to do or eat something. So well, in fact, it's hard to keep from giggling as she suddenly vehemently demands that she gets to do the thing she was only moments ago fighting NOT to do. But the funniest and most anmoying part about the Terrible Twos in our house are the coversations between Zoe and Liam that tend to go something like this;
You are a Yucky Boy, Liam!
No, I'm not
Yes, You are a Yucky Boy. A Stupid Boy Liam!!
No I'm NOT. You are a Yucky Girl Zoe!
No, I'm a princess! You are a yucky boy!
Mom!! Zoe's calling me a Yucky Boy! And I'm NOT, I'm a Viking!
You're NOT a Viking, You're a yucky Boy! I'm not a Viking I'm a Princess!
I didn't call you a Viking. I'm a Viking! Stop it Zoe. Mom! Zoe hurt my feelings!!
You are a yucky boy!
Mom!!!
You get the idea. This happens about five to ten times a day these days. Sigh. And where did she learn the word 'Stupid' from anyways?... Oh yah, 'Bushy the Chimp.' That's another Blog entry.
Another aspect of the Terrible Twos that I deal with regularly is the issue of clothing. Before Christmas Zoe was a pants-and-shirt girl (she wouldn't wear tights so dresses weren't much of an option) as long as the pants were pink or had some kind of pretty detail and as long as the shirt had some feature she likes - a fairy, a heart, something. Getting her dressed was always a bit of a negotiation but it could be done. After Christmas she decided that she will only wear one of her purple dresses. She has three - one she got at the end of summer and two Nana got for her - and only one of those has long sleeves. At least she will wear tights now. But, she just recently decided she needed more colours than just purple - but not any of the winter dresses she has. They are Yucky! Now her daily wardrobe consists of a turtle neck (my compromise) under one of her sundresses so she can look the part of the 'beautiful princess.' Sigh. She certainly acts the part.
The last (so far) and probably most frustrating aspect of the terrible twos is her recent aversion to public potties. I discovered this last week while out for lunch and book shopping with the kids. All public toilets were suddenly labelled YUCKY (not that I blame her) and she started screaming bloody murder and stiffening into a board if I tried to hold her over a toilet despite the fact that she obviously needed to pee and kept telling me so. She insisted that she wanted a 'purple potty' and there was no way she was going to use any of the non-purple nearby options. This meant that she peed herself in Chapters - good thing she was in rubber boots! The trouble with this is that she seems to consider ALL toilets not actually IN our house as YUCKY. Sigh.
I'm hoping it's really an aversion the the big hole of a regular toilet so I'm going to pick up another seat cover and see if that helps.
That about covers it. I wonder what's next?
