"Mommy, come here! Come see daddy long legs in the window. Two of them, one big and one small!"
"I love you, goofy Mommy."
"I don't like dinner anymore. I want ice cream."
"I HAVE TO stand on new deck. NOW."
"What's that?" (pointing to my ankle length skirt) It's called a skirt, I say. "Where did Mommy's pants go?"
"I don't want to go home. I stay at camp FOREVER."
"I love ice cream FOREVER."
"I see Isaac FOREVER."
"I watch Chicken Little FOREVER."
"I don't like naughty seat FOREVER."
(who taught him to say forever?)
"I'm sorry Harry ran away." After he took off at the beach and we couldn't find him, but then we saw his little feet flying toward the playground.
Times are trying right now with our little guy. I read in one of the baby books (Dr. Spock, maybe?) that the primary job of a two year old is to push boundaries, to see what they can get away with, in order to figure out their place in the world and within their family. If that is his primary job, Harry is a very good little worker. He runs away from us, won't eat any meals but begs for snacks all day long, is contrary and disagreeable, and wants his own way all of the time. It is tiresome. We are tired. But we hold firm to our boundaries, knowing that if we give in one little bit he will push harder and harder. When we stop him and correct his behavior he is at first mad, and then seems relieved and sorry. And he seems tired, too, as if all of this two year old work is making him sleepy and slightly out of control. Onward we trudge toward the defining moment of three, when I hope some of this pushing subsides and he relaxes back into our easygoing, mellow man. Until then I look to the funny moments and the sweet things he says to make myself laugh and to remind myself that he is still our Harry just slightly, pushily, two. It will pass. It will not last FOREVER.
I guess that's why they don't call it the terrible twos for nothing. I do have to say that Harry impressed us and our friends last weekend during Emma's party. He was playing with her lawnmower on the deck and then eventually moved onto the lawn/sand. Anyhow, WTD and I told him not to play with it on the sand because it would make it dirty and then he wouldn't be able to play with it inside. I then asked Harry to bring it back up to the deck. Harry had several options. As a 2 year old he could either:
ReplyDeletea) ignore me
b) ignore me again
c) drag the lawnmower back through the sand and bring it up to the deck
What did Harry do? He chose....
d) Stopped immediately, pick up the lawnmower and carried it back up to the deck without any complaints
I guess my point is that you guys are doing a great job with him. You'd be more worried if he wasn't going through these normal stages of growing pains and it will pass. Hang in there Sullys. By the time Emma is ready, you'll be pros at this.
For the record, we did not teach him "forever"