What a misnomer: the terrible twos. At least in our family. The emotional ups and downs, whining, tantrums, frustrations and defiance have not abated since the girls turned 3. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been ALL bad. Hannah and Isabelle are more and more fun to be around as we watch them become their own individual people with their own individual personalities, wants and needs.
But...
Interspersed with this fun are some moments of misery. And God love her, Isabelle seems to be the one most striken with these fits of "terrible-ness." You could say that she just feels everything in her world with such passion and intensity. Yeah, something like that...
Isabelle's battleground for control often centers around the potty. I'll tell her she needs to go potty, because she really does need to go, and she kicks and screams and refuses to sit down to do her business until I all but strap her onto the seat. Or after she goes when I tell her to wipe, she says she's still going and refuses to get off the potty. Won't get on, won't get off. Pretty much she won't do whatever it is that I ask her to do. It's always great fun when it happens in a single public restroom with a line of people waiting outside for their turn.
We're trying hard to teach the girls to use their words to express themselves instead of hitting, biting, pushing, etc. It's coming back to bite me in the keister now as Isabelle is also fond of telling me, "I'm very frustrated right now, Mommy, so don't do that to me," when I take her away from something she's doing. So I'm stuck: great that she's using her words, but not great that she's using them to get her way. Argh!
A lot of this drama is related to the fact that I can't remember the last time Isabelle took a nap. I think maybe it was last week some time, but I'm not sure. I keep telling myself she is no way ready to be done napping, because we've been through stretches like this before where she doesn't nap for over a week and then gets herself back on track. She is so much happier and easier of a child when she naps, and I'm a much happier mama. But I know many kids drop their nap around this age so I'm preparing myself for this possibility. If it is part of a permanent trend though, I think things around here are going to be pretty ugly for awhile until she gets used to having less sleep.
HELP!
3 comments:
Oh.....you are scaring me! I hate the days when we skip a nap, and to think that it will someday (in the not so distant future) be a way of life is just to frightening to consider!
I love how she is using her words, though! She's eloquent. Even when if makes you want to scream.
Oh I totally agree with you. 3 is much harder than 2...or at least it feels like it, maybe I have forgotten.
I feel your pain. My husband called naptime for our three "golden time." It was a three-hour space in the day when they could be relied upon to be safely locked in the arms of Morpheus and the grown-ups could do whatever we wanted without being attentive to a small person.
But there is a bright spot: no naptime means a longer stretch of nighttime sleeping. Sometimes.
--Dawn
Post a Comment