Tackling the Terrible/Terrific Twos

Jennifer:
For Thanksgiving, we travel to the town where both my family and my spouse’s family are, so we get a chance to see everyone. It’s always a lot of traveling back and forth from house to house, but it is nice to be a part of the big family again. Gianna has a cousin that is the same age as her, so she’s already looking forward to the visit. She also gets tons of attention and gifts from everyone, so of course she enjoys it.

We have a couple of Thanksgiving books that talk about being thankful for blessings in our life. After reading the books, we have talked about how we will get to spend time with all of the people in our family and it’s a time to be thankful for those people and all of our many blessings.

Amy:
I wish I had some great ideas for Holiday traditions. We have both grandmothers here in Spokane so we trade holidays. This year we will be with the paternal grandmother. For years, their entire family has gathered at a local church for a Thanksgiving potluck. I love this opportunity, as it is a large group of close to 50 people. It is great for the kids to see how important extended family is, interact with great-great aunts that live out of town, see cousins they only see at this event and enjoy a variety of family recipe’s. On the maternal side, we always go around the table to say what we are thankful for. That is the extent of our Thanksgiving traditions.

Teresa: For us, Thanksgiving is about spending time with family, which I’m sure is a common theme. Delaney’s fortunate enough to have 4 great grandparents still alive, 2 of them right here in Spokane, so I think it’s important she gets to see them. At the Thanksgiving table, which rotates to different family members every year, will be our family, my husband’s parents, sister, her husband, two cousins, a great grandmother, and often my family comes from Ellensburg to celebrate as well. It’s a fun time, and made even more fun by the fact there’s now enough little kids to fill the kiddy table. I also have the week off which will give Laney and I some much needed mommy/daughter time. Well Laney may not be quite old enough to understand the meaning of this holiday; I hope I can help her understand through demonstration. I am thankful and blessed to have two healthy children, a great job, and a loving husband to share everything with (our 9th anniversary is the day before Thanksgiving).

Saturday, Laney and I enjoyed Disney on Ice together. The show was wonderful. It was great to see her face light up as she recognized all her favorite Disney characters. Her birthday is fast approaching and I see a Tinkerbelle party in our near future!

Tara:

 Bedtime has always been hard for me personally.  I am a total night owl by nature, as is my entire family.  My husband however, has a very healthy sleep-at-night-and-wake-up-with- the-sun thing going on.  This has been cause for some tension.  I can’t get myself in bed on time, let alone two wild, whining rug rats – at the same time.  And right now my husband wakes up at five and sometimes is not home until after ten.  So the evenings we have together are more precious than ever.  And even more precious when without little ones.  This gives a big incentive for us to get them in bed at a decent hour, but I still am really bad at it!

I stay up late, which means I am not much of an early riser.  So, my confession:  I absolutely do not want them in bed too early!  My husband would really prefer they were in bed by seven or eight.  I’m okay with ten or eleven!!  What ends up happening is my hubby just goes to bed before us and I end up putting both kids to bed by myself.  This is bad for two reasons.  1. My husband is in the habit of not helping with bedtime at all.  2. Someday, we will come to the terrible crossroads of going to school and being night owls.  From experience, the two do not mix.  So we have some kinks to work out in our routine!

It’s not all bad though.  We have a pretty steady routine that happens around the same time every night, even if that time is too late.  We pick up his bedroom to wind down from playing.  Then we get pajamas and a nighttime diaper on.  We take turns brushing his teeth.  We wash his face.  Then we climb into his tiny toddler bed (never ever buy a toddler bed if you ever intend to sit or lay in your child’s bed with him, just a heads up!) to read books – three if he is incredibly well behaved, and he loses one book at a time for any stalling.  Of course Isaac joins us for all of this unless he is crashed out with Daddy! 

Robert has lots of favorite books.  We try to read a lot!  He loves the interactive books in which he can push buttons for sound effects that match the story.  He has a Thomas the Train book we read almost every night that has about twelve different sounds.  He also loves lift the flap books.  But the books with the really engaging story lines could never be beat out by those cheap tricks!!  He loves “Are You My Mother,”  “Goodbye Mommy,” and “The Napping House” the best.  He also enjoys “Where the Wild Things Are,”  “Caps for Sale,” “On The Night You Were Born,” “Love You Forever,” “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See,” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon.”  My favorites are “The Napping House” in which a little boy climbs on his grandma to sleep followed by the dog, the cat, a mouse and a flea, and “Love You Forever” about a mom and son throughout all the fun and difficult stages we all grow and are loved through.

All in all, bedtimes aren’t too bad around here.  I love sitting down and reading with my boys every night and then cuddling them to sleep.  I really love them when they’re sleeping!  I have found that as long as we have a routine and stick it around the same time every night, my boys are calmer all day and sleep better.  (We had trouble getting Robert to sleep through the night until just recently.  Getting and staying consistent has really helped.)  We just need to move our whole schedule about two hours up.  That has been really difficult.  But I am trying to get there little by little so we can think about starting preschool next fall!

 Teresa:

I have been VERY fortunate not to have any bedtime battles with Delaney.  She’s always been a good sleeper and we keep her on a pretty consistent schedule, which I think helps.  The other day at naptime though, she did have a “terrible two” moment.  It was a Monday and on Monday’s my husband and I watch our nephew Cohen.  My sister-in-law had come to get him at about 12:30 as usual.  This is lunchtime and then onto nap time for Delaney.  Laney had been play with some hair pretties on the floor and was excited to see her Aunty when she came to get Cohen.  My husband announced to Laney that it was time for nap, to which her instant response was “NO!”  This is unusual response for her although it is becoming more frequent as she starts to voice her independence! So my husband repeated his request and she again said, “NO!”  One the third try, she looked at him and said, “FINE! Then I’m taking this with me!” grabbed one of her hair pretties and stormed off to her room, leaving my husband and sister-in-law laughing hysterically.

 Now, back to last week’s question: Potty Training…WE’VE HAD SUCCESS!! It took a lot of patience, but last Saturday, Laney was running around the house in her birthday suit when she said she needed to go potty.  Normally this leads to a long stint of her sitting on the potty with no actual results produced.  This time, she asked to read a book while she was pondering whether or not she wanted a Hershey’s Kiss bad enough to actually pee in the potty.  I read through the story once and she asked me to read it again, so I did.  About half way through the story the second time, she started to giggle.  I looked at her and smiled making her laugh some more, and FINALLY she peed in the potty!!!  Woohoo!  We yelled for Daddy and shared our success with anyone who would listen.  Then, the following week at daycare, she went all day, including nap, without an accident!  Now we just have to conquer #2 and we’ll be good to go!  We went straight to the store and let her pick out more big-girl underwear, which she now proudly (much to my dismay in the grocery store) shows it off when she has the chance.  It is slightly bitter sweet though as Laney is my baby and this is one of the last milestones to getting out of babyhood and into pre-school.  But, I will say I’m ecstatic not to have to pay for diapers anymore!

Teresa:

My son Brenden is now six and I’ve always heard it’s easier with girls than it is with boys. Brenden was easy when it came to going pee, but pooping was a totally different story. It took a lot of patience, reading books for an hour at a time while sitting on a stool in the bathroom, and then finally the bribe of a set of Superman pajamas to get him to poop in the potty. We haven’t got a lot of advice from other parents, so I’ve kinda taken to it like potty training a puppy. We let Delaney run around the house naked, which she absolutely loves. She likes to “shaky booty” as she calls it and will run around the house singing at the top of her lungs, “Shaky boooooty, shaky booooooty!” She’s figured out what it feels like to need to go potty, so she’ll tell us when it’s time. That gets us about halfway through, but, when it comes to actually going potty, she sits on the potty, uses toilet paper and flushes, but has yet to actually put something in the potty J She’ll say she’s done and then about 2 minutes later ask for a diaper. She absolutely is her mother’s daughter and loves chocolate, so I’m thinking it may take me sitting in the bathroom with a handful of M&M’s in order to get her to actually get up the courage to tinkle in the appropriate place. She just turned two, so I’m not in a big rush right now to get her potty trained.

On a side note, we had our first really good terrible-two-tantrum last night. We were all sitting down at the dinner table eating pork and green beans. Brenden’s a very good eater, but Delaney’s just starting to figure out the rules when it comes to dinner time, i.e.; you don’t get dessert unless you finish your dinner. Now Delaney has always liked pork in the past, but for whatever two-year-old reason last night, she decided she didn’t. She would chew and chew and chew and then look to see if we were watching and then spit it back out onto her plate. Brenden finished all his dinner, so I thought it might be an incentive if I made Brenden‘s dessert so she could have a goal to reach for. As Brenden relished his dessert of banana pudding with bananas on top (Laney’s favorite fruit), you could see the wheels spinning. She would take more bites, eventually cramming her mouth full of pork, but then spitting it out on her plate. I then decided to make her dessert and set it on the table within sight, but just out of reach. We went through this several times until my husband finally decided enough was enough and moved Laney’s dessert up to the counter. He asked her several times if she wanted to finish her dinner and through her tears she sobbed “no” and was again told she could not have her dessert. After a few minutes of this dialogue, the first blood curdling scream came. And then came the pounding of feet on the linoleum floor, and some more screaming and sobbing. Then she cried, “Mooooommm!” I came around the corner and the look in my eyes must have said, “I’m not giving you dessert either” because she saw me, ran right passed me, laid her head on the bottom step of the stairs and started crying for her Nana, which is what she calls my mother-in-law. It was so hard not to laugh, but hopefully we won’t have too many of those before she figures out rules are rules. I can only laugh so many times before it’s not funny anymore J

Yvonne:
Potty training. isn’t happening. yet. Aspen was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease after months and months of terrible, awful, disgusting blow out diapers. My husband and I had decided that we wouldn’t even begin to attempt potty training until those out of control diapers started getting better. Well, its been 2 1/2 months on her gluten-free diet and we haven’t had a nasty diaper like she’d been having in just over a month. So, I guess its time to start getting ready for it.

The thing is, I REALLY would LOVE to not have two children in diapers. That would be fantastic. But I am not ready for potty training. Aspen is showing signs of beginning to be ready: she takes her diaper off and asks to go potty. She has actually peed on the potty a couple times in the last week, but really she just likes to sit on it and talk to us. But she is showing an interest. She also reaches for the wipes to wipe her own bum when we are changing diapers. She talks about pee-pee and poop all the time. She lets me know when she’s gone in her diaper. So she is definitely starting to show signs of readiness. So maybe this week we’ll take her to get a potty chair. And some potty books.

Tara:
How do we keep our incredibly active 2 year old entertained in the winter? Well, he will actually keep himself entertained if we don’t – he can turn on any faucet and loves to play with water, he can put on his own snow boots (with pajamas if necessary) and let himself into the backyard, he can open any bottle and dump its contents and then find something to “clean it up” with. Point being, we have to keep him incredibly well entertained at every second of the day. (I’m not exaggerating. Yesterday while I brushed my teeth, he was sent to find his toothbrush and instead found half a jug of hand soap and overflowed the sink with suds and then climbed the shelves of a cabinet to get a bleach pen and “colored” the toilet…) So, he does everything with us! He brushes his teeth, washes his face, and puts on lotion with me every morning. He is excellent at loading the washer and dryer. He is my assistant in changing Isaac or giving him tummy-time. We eat every meal together. And if there is a chore he can’t help with, we grab a puzzle, coloring book, blocks, or even a cardboard box for him so he stays close.
A newfound favorite indoor activity is our Wii Fit. We got it for Christmas, and he asks to play it every day. Since it is so active we don’t have to say, “no,” and he loves it! It had us both running in circles yesterday, which is one of his favorite activities. He especially enjoyed it since I don’t usually join him, but that dang game was giving me points for it! It’s probably pretty good for me too.
Even in the cold weather, he gets outside playtime. He doesn’t seem to mind the cold. We bundle him up anyway, and he does laps with the dog! When it snowed we took him sledding. When it is dry, we try to get out for walks. We really would like to join the YMCA before winter ends as well. They have short-term childcare included in the membership for you to work out. Plus they have tons of classes for kids even 18 months. We plan on putting him in swimming lessons within the next couple months and have looked at some Gymboree classes as well.
At this age, he is finally starting to crave interaction with other kids. So we try to see cousins and friends often, especially since he’s cooped up indoors a lot. It’s hard at this age to balance protecting other children from bad behavior while not being overbearing in his playtime. It’s usually a better-learned lesson when he learns it on his own, and it’s an important time for social interaction to be positive as opposed to triggering anxiety. However, you can’t just let him wail on other people’s kids, now can you? My experience has been, he does best when he has a good amount of leash and a lot of positive reinforcement. Then, he has to have instant consequences when he crosses the line – “We have to sit on the bench and cool down for 2 minutes because you pushed Charlie. If you decide to have a tantrum we will have to leave.” When it goes smoothly, playing around other kids has been his favorite thing to do this winter. Both Northtown and the Valley Malls have little play places that are inexpensive outlets for interaction when outside is off limits!

What coping strategies are you using to make it through this long winter with a 2- year-old?

Yvonne:

I realized one snowy, cloudy, yucky and downright dreary day that my Aspen was bored! After the third incident of washing crayon off the walls and my 7 month old’s face, I took a step back and really saw that she wasn’t trying to frazzle me! She was just plain bored. We’d been inside the house for 6 days straight. 6 days. I was going stir-crazy; was it any wonder that she was, too? So we loaded up and tried to venture out on a walk. I put the girls in their double jogging stroller and attempted to cross the street – only to find that the stroller oddly enough (haha) doesn’t do well in slush on top of ice. Yes, that is right – we got stuck! It was like stroller 4-wheeling (on 3 wheels!) to get out of there and we just headed back the 100 yards to the house. Plan B – find some good indoor activities to do. So we dug through the “lone sock” pile and found some of my husband’s socks that were suitable for puppet making and we made puppets. It was just what my Aspen needed: a change from the usual daily activities of coloring, finger-painting and reading. And just enough for me to get on the ball and find some decent indoor activities. So this winter, we have spent days in blanket-tents, doing puppet shows, making obstacle courses in the house. We now have daily “dance-parties” and races down the hall. And Aspen hasn’t colored on the walls or on her sister in weeks.

Teresa:

For me, its handy having a big brother that can help keep Delany occupied. Fortunately, for the most part, they play very well together. I try to make as many trips out of the house with the kids as I can. We go to Mobius at River Park Square as often as we can, but getting downtown can be a challenge since I live a ways north. The other option is heading to the mall. My kids love the Drop-n-Play center. There, you can play with your kids, or chose to let their great staff watch them while you go shopping. There are a lot of activities and other kids to play with so Brenden and Laney aren’t stuck getting on each other’s nerves all the time. Play dates with neighbors are good to, since they’re probably feeling just as cooped up as you are. My next-door neighbor and I actually share a physical fitness trainer once a week. It’s great because we workout, split the cost, and the kids get an hour or so to play with each other upstairs.

Parenting a two year old can certainly be the best of times and the worst of times! Sweet and loving one moment, throwing tempestuous tantrums the next, navigating the way through the two’s can be both terrible and terrific. That’s why we’ve asked three moms to blog their way through their journey with their two year olds. You’re invited to join the conversation and add your parenting insight to Tackling the Terrible/Terrific Twos.

Tara:
My name is Tara and I am 23. My son Robert turned two July 12th, so we just celebrated the big two-and-a-half – Robert is so proud. He is also the proud older brother of Isaac who is four months, born September 24th. Their daddy, my husband, is Robby who is also 23. I am a stay at home Mom and a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant working from home. Robby works at a restaurant part-time and is a fulltime student in Whitworth’s Masters in Teaching program currently student teaching at Ferris High School. Robert is a fulltime mischief-maker working a lot of overtime. Isaac is a fulltime big-brother-observer, although he is soon expecting a promotion to assistant mischief-maker.

The biggest challenge we face as the parents of a two year old is negotiation. We are constantly caught trying to find a balance between “Pleeeeease do NOT throw a three hour scream-until-you-fall-asleep temper tantrum!” and “I am the parent, and you have a lot to learn.”

Two year olds are far more advanced than we give them credit for. They understand all the subtle nuances of adult interaction, exactly how to push daddy’s buttons, and just what they can get away with. They are ferociously curious and wickedly innovative. They are trying to test and solve everything just because they are trying to do what we are all trying to do – figure things out. As amazing as this is, it’s rather inconvenient for the parent who is trying to get home to make dinner and your kid wants to take home a diverse sampling of the grocery store candy display. Most two-year-old events don’t warrant consequences beyond gentle redirection, “You can pick one treat to take home and have after dinner.” But occasionally the time comes when more, let’s say, forceful redirection is needed. That’s when you become a master negotiator.

Children are testing to see who is really in control, but it’s not usually because they want to control you, they want to know they have some control over themselves. The problem? They really don’t have a lot of say in whether they can take home twenty candy bars. Our job is suddenly not just to get home and make dinner, but allowing them enough control over their lives so they can someday take on responsibility while still accepting our responsibility as a parent – using consequences to teach them right from wrong.

So when that gentle redirection doesn’t work, the life lesson of “we can’t steal candy, we aren’t wasting money on twenty candy bars, and candy is not the best dietary choice anyway” warrants a tantrum if need be, but doesn’t have to turn into a tantrum if we can negotiate our way out of the store while keeping the lesson intact. And that two year old knows how to negotiate! But he will feel significant and will have gained knowledge and restraint if we can convince him that it’s really his choice, but he’s going to feel a lot better if he waits until after dinner to have a small treat… and is not in jail for stealing twenty candy bars!

Yvonne:
My name is Yvonne, and as of 4 days ago, I am 30. Yikes! Aspen is almost 20 months and is our oldest. We tried for 5 years to have kids and finally were able to adopt Aspen and then just a few months later found out we were pregnant! Talk about a surprise! 12 months and 13 days after little Aspen was born, Mia joined our little family. Mia is now 7 months old. I am a stay at home mom and have never been busier in all my life (or happier!). My days are spent chasing after my toddler and trying to keep her from feeding her pretzels and crayons to her baby sister…or poking her eyes…or stealing her binky…or laying on top of her…or coloring her face. Aspen does everything with such enthusiasm – whether its big hugs and kisses or huge throwing herself on the ground tantrums. She is a joy and a challenge all wrapped into one.

One of the biggest challenges we’ve had with parenting our nearly-two-year-old is the HUGE emotions. Everything our daughter does and feels, she does with gusto for sure! When she is happy, she is HAPPY and delightful and charming. And when she is mad or frustrated – watch out world! It’s amazing to me that she can throw herself down on the floor and scream and cry and kick her legs and then when she’s done, she’s back to happy and content little girl. We haven’t quite figured out the best way to deal with her toddler-tantrums yet; we just try to figure out what’s caused the “melt-down” and we basically ignore the tantrum while she’s having it. So far, it seems to help some. Its really embarrassing when she has her fits in public and people openly stop and stare at me like I’m the worst mother in the world for not allowing my child to have the 4 candy bars she wants at the grocery store – or whatever the problem is. But I am the adult and I try to make the best decisions for her.

But the greatest joy comes from the love my Aspen can give. Like I said, she does everything huge. She loves HUGE. She gives the best hugs and kisses. She is tender and loving, she is sweet as can be when she wants to be. So with the big challenge of trying to determine the best course of action, (or non-action, ignoring, whatever works) for dealing with the tantrums, with that comes the biggest reward of the huge love and affection that comes with it.

Teresa:
We have a family of four. Ryan, my husband, is fortunate enough to work from home for a building products company. I work outside the home. Our son, Brenden, is five and attends kindergarten in the Mead school district. Because of my husband’s ability to work from home, we chose not to put Brenden in childcare this year, which has worked out very well. Delaney, our daughter, just turned two the beginning of January and it still amazes me that time goes by SO quickly! For the most part, the kids get along well, with gentle reminders to Brenden that Delaney looks up to him and as so she tends to mimic all his bad habits. The most challenging part of raising Delaney right now is that she’s decided she’s Miss Independent. She wants to dress herself and screams if you try to make the tiniest adjustment, like moving her sock around so that the heel part is in the correct position. This leads to lots of laughs as she tries to maneuver through the house with two legs in one pant hole, or decides she’s going to layer 3 or 4 pair of underwear, 2 of which inevitably end up wrapped around her waist. We’ve also started giving Delaney timeouts for bad behavior, which is a learning experience for us all. And of course, we’re now working on potty training. Delaney likes to sit on the potty, play with toilet paper, and flush, but not much else! All in all, I feel very blessed and look forward to hearing from other parents about coping with their two year olds!