2 year olds

[Jim Alfredson]

I'm losing my mind...

What happened to the sweet, lovable, obedient, easy-to-please child I had just a few months ago? My wife and I used to laugh about "the terrible twos". "Oh Zora is so sweet," we said when she was 24 months, then 25, then 26, then 27.

All of sudden, she's become the Devil's spawn. The other day, after repeatedly telling her not to play at the window (our windows are 5 foot tall and very close to the floor), she put one of her toys through the brand new storm-screen window that I just put on the house last fall. Poked it right through the screen.

Bedtime, including naps, has become a Battle of Wills. She's tall enough and coordinated enough to open doors (even though our doorknobs are 100 years old and hard to turn) and so she escapes from her room over and over again. If she's not escaping, she's in her room playing with toys instead of lying in her bed.

Today my sister brought her little boy over, who is a month older, and Zora took to bullying him around, pinching him, pushing him, taking toys away from him, yelling at him, etc. When did I inherent a brat?!

After that episode of bullying, she started eating her window sill. There are all these little teeth marks and chips out of the paint where she is biting the sill, for some unknown reason. She started doing it right in front of me, even though she knows she's not supposed to (she's gotten in trouble for it before). So I put her on the "naughty step" for a few minutes.

Right after letting her off the naughty step, I left her alone for a minute while I talked to my sister and we were playing with her son and Zora proceeds to take a plastic flower (for some reason she has this plastic flower... like the kind little old ladies have in their houses... I do not know where it comes from) and draws with it on our new LG refrigerator. Now, this flower has a very sharp metal wire sticking out of the bottom (again, why does she have this thing!?) and she scratched the living shit out of our new fridge, which is not stainless but has a "titanium finish" that looks like stainless but is still magnetic. All I know is that it's scratched to hell and there's no way to repair it. Looks like we'll be replacing the door.

I'm about at my wits end with this child! I haven't even tried to put her down for a nap yet!

[Guy Berger]

Sorry to laugh at your misfortune, Jim, but that story was fun to read. I wish I was two years old again!

Guy

[Jim Alfredson]

I'm laughing too, but she is really starting to push my buttons these days. It probably doesn't help that I haven't been sleeping well at all due to my back pain.

Now I know why my parents never had any nice stuff!

[scottb]

Here's my two cents...

Hold off on replacing that fridge door until your through having kids and the youngest is about 5 yrs old

(I wouldn't rush to repair that window screen either)

[Jim Alfredson]

You're probably right. It just sucks because I worked so hard on this kitchen (did almost everything myself, killed myself over it) and there's this big ugly mark on the beautiful fridge now. Guess I'll just cover it up with Zora's REAL artwork (the paper kind).

Oh, she's also started pooping on the floor for some reason. We're trying to potty train her and we're thinking she's confused... but then again, the kid is a damn genius and maybe she's doing this on purpose. She can already spell her own name, several other words, count to 20, do simple arithmetic, knows all her colors and letters, etc. I mean, she's damn smart.

Maybe she's bored?

[Rooster_Ties]

My wife and I love kids -- when we can give them back to their parents.

NO kids for us, not in a million years!!

Grandkids, however, is something we'd like to have some day.

[Free For All]

Oh, she's also started pooping on the floor for some reason.....she can already spell her own name

Hopefully these two events aren't related in any way.

[Chalupa]

Uh-oh my son just turned 27 months... is this what I have to look forward to???

[Eric]

Here's my two cents...

Hold off on replacing that fridge door until your through having kids and the youngest is about 5 yrs old

(I wouldn't rush to repair that window screen either)

Exactly. With kids, stuff gets jacked up - potentially really jacked up. It took me a while to "just deal with it" but I have and now I can look at some of that stuff with affection versus being very PO'd.

You do save money by not buying nice stuff. The existing nice stuff (as you have discovered) is where the issues reside

[deadcoldfish]

You're probably right. It just sucks because I worked so hard on this kitchen (did almost everything myself, killed myself over it) and there's this big ugly mark on the beautiful fridge now. Guess I'll just cover it up with Zora's REAL artwork (the paper kind).

Oh, she's also started pooping on the floor for some reason. We're trying to potty train her and we're thinking she's confused... but then again, the kid is a damn genius and maybe she's doing this on purpose. She can already spell her own name, several other words, count to 20, do simple arithmetic, knows all her colors and letters, etc. I mean, she's damn smart.

Maybe she's bored?

Jim,

As for the pooping on the floor, she's telling you she's not ready for the potty.

[Jim Alfredson]

Well, she poops on the floor, and then runs over to the potty and sits on it. I just don't think she understands the order of operations yet. She likes sitting on the potty.

The other thing she's started doing is completely flipping out when we try to wash her hair. She's always loved bath-time and has never misbehaved in the tub, but the last week or so, every time we try to wash her hair, she goes crazy. Legs flailing, screaming, trying to get out of the tub, etc. I don't understand that one.

I try to put myself in her shoes and think about how strange the world must be to her. I also try to remind myself that she's only two, even though she acts, thinks, and understands (generally) more like an older child. And she's also a BIG girl (over three feet tall already... skinny as a rail) so it's easy to forget she's that young. She really looks like a four year old.

[Brownian Motion]

Be careful that the paint she's chomping on is not lead-based. I've heard that lead-based paint has a 'sweet' taste which children enjoy.

[Chuck Nessa]

Be careful that the paint she's chomping on is not lead-based. I've heard that lead-based paint has a 'sweet' taste which children enjoy.

Yeah, but it might slow her down.

[GA Russell]

Not to change the subject, Jim, but what do you think of your LG refrigerator?

The website that carries the Calgary Stampeders Canadian league games is sponsored by LG, and I had never heard of that company before.

[patricia]

Jim, I really do feel your pain. However, there are a few things that I did with my two girls at that age. They might minimize the damage around the house, especially the damage to the grownup, expensive stuff. We didn't even move the breakable ornaments, or hold off on upgrading our furniture. I looked at it as an ongoing lesson on respecting other people's stuff.

You have to establish whose stuff is whose, which as a side-benefit make kids easier to take to other people's houses.

What I did was to use a technique that threatens to drive you crazy, but becomes routine. It involves constantly re-establishing territory No. That's mine. Don't touch. [handing them their toy, or other thing] "This is yours [at the same time moving them away from the forbidden thing, or activity].

Sometimes you feel like you've done it a thousand times, but it really does work.

The tantrums can be handled with your naughty step procedure. Tantrums outside the home are handled only one way, in my experience. No anger. Just pick up the child, along with anthing else you have with you, take her to the car and take her home. Immediately.

Only truly emergency errands can't be handled by removing the child from the situation.

No yelling. No slapping. No punishment, other than the removal.

The hair-washing thing is not that uncommon. Just rinse, at whatever point you reached before the tantrum, and get her out of the bath. Her hair won't be as thoroughly done as you hoped, but you can't put up with the dangerous nonsense when they are in water.

I found that both my girls soon, usually the first time any malfeasance happened, realized that I was not part of their little game. The only thing I told them was that they would not go back to wherever we were if they behaved like that again. Oddly, I guess because I had my stern Mom face on and they interpreted the whole thing as written in stone.

As a result, I could take them anywhere.

You and your wife are the Alpha Dogs. Zora is the puppy.

Parenting. Not a job for the weak, is it?? :crazy:

Edited September 28, 2006 by patricia

[Indestructible!]

Not to change the subject, Jim, but what do you think of your LG refrigerator?

The website that carries the Calgary Stampeders Canadian league games is sponsored by LG, and I had never heard of that company before.

GA,

LG is a pretty huge company, and they tend to make some high quality stuff! Their appliances have a pretty good track record, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them over most other brands. (Except for the one LG cell phone I used to own... it was OK, but nothing great)

Oh, and... Go Stamps Go! They started off like crap, but have been flying lately! You know they'll meet the 'Riders in the playoffs, and Burris is gonna burn them pretty badly. Those 'Rider fans REALLY have a hate-on for Burris, so it'll be a fun game to watch!

Cheers,

Shane

[Jim Alfredson]

The window was stripped and re-painted by me. I had to re-glaze the window and just stripped the whole thing. So there is no lead paint on there anymore.

GA, we love our LG appliances. We have the fridge and a dishwasher from the same series. Both are wonderful. Highly recommended.

[Hot Ptah]

Wait until they turn 10-11 years old. That is another time of great upheaval, more verbal than physical (although things have been thrown by our daughter while in one of her rages).

[Jim Alfredson]

Thanks, patricia. We have purposely kept our nice things out and try to teach Zora what she's allowed to touch and what she's not. The problem with the fridge is that she's allowed to put her artwork on it using magnets. The step from putting things on it to "engraving" it with a piece of metal is probably not too far in her mind.

But we haven't used any of those "cupboard locks" or "child proof doorknobs", etc. We just tell her not to open or get into certain things and so far she's been good. We had a problem for quite some time of her playing with the dirt in our plants, but she's stopped doing that finally.

So far we haven't had a tantrum in public, but if we do, I will remember your advice.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Them Berenstain Bears have some great lessons inside with some good kid humor that a two year old can get.

especially the one where they get down with some Ramsey!

[GA Russell]

Oh, and... Go Stamps Go! They started off like crap, but have been flying lately! You know they'll meet the 'Riders in the playoffs, and Burris is gonna burn them pretty badly. Those 'Rider fans REALLY have a hate-on for Burris, so it'll be a fun game to watch!

Cheers,

Shane

Indestructible, I thought I was the only Canadian league fan here! I should have known that someone named Shane was a Canadian!

I try to listen to all the games on the internet. The past month I have had significant streaming problems. Only the Regina station CKRM streams satisfactorily now. Calgary's CHQR was one of the best until the problems started. I emailed the stations about the problems, telling them to undo whatever it was that they did a month ago, but the only response I received denied having done anything.

I hope CKRM carries the Grey Cup. They probably will.

[JSngry]

This is the beginning of her declaration of independence, and it's going to last for quite a long while. You job as parents begins to shift from caregiver to direction provider right now.

Tough pill to swallow for many parents, but the sooner you accept that she's never going to be totally dependent on you ever again (barring some horrible accident), the sooner you can get on with the business of incrementally getting her ready for an adulthood full of love, common sense, and good values, which is, really, the true job of parenting. Exerting direct control instead of steering them in the right direction becomes increasingly counter-productive as the years pass, and the smoother you can make the transition (and the sooner you can begin to safely & wisely make it), the better.

This is all hindsight, though. Keep in mind that this might be a lesson learned after the fact for me...

[GA Russell]

GA, we love our LG appliances. We have the fridge and a dishwasher from the same series. Both are wonderful. Highly recommended.

Jim, I hope to buy a house in about a year. I'll keep LG in mind when the time comes, since you and Indestructible recommend them.

[Chuck Nessa]

GA, we love our LG appliances. We have the fridge and a dishwasher from the same series. Both are wonderful. Highly recommended.

Jim, I hope to buy a house in about a year. I'll keep LG in mind when the time comes, since you and Indestructible recommend them.

They are a large Korean concern making a push into the North American market by following the Hyundai model of price/quality. Look like fine appliances and Ann likes her LG phone a bunch.

[marcello]

Jim, I once had a wiser and older man tell me when my 4 kids were young : "Bigger children, bigger problems".

Enjoy them when they are at this stage and when think you're the whole world.

Edited September 28, 2006 by marcello