The Terrible Two's

Well today is day 8 back at work and I am settling into the routines again. One of my favorite at-work routines is checking the handful of blogs I follow. I do so on my two 15 minute breaks, if anyone asks. :) Bust honestly, even if I choose to comment, it takes me less than 10 minutes to catch up on any new posts because I only read blogs by my friends and I only have a few friends who blog (that I know of). And the Woods in California havent updated their blog in 9 months!! (Hope you are reading this and are called to action, Kimmy! haha)

So anyway, this morning I came across my friend Wildali's new blog post entitled "The Terrible Twos". Her daughter Isabel turned two in December, so she is only about 6 weeks older than Lily. I'm not great with technolgy, but let me see if I can figure out how to link her blog post here. Her post made me laugh because Isabel and Lily are so similar! And Clint always loves reading about the De Jesus family's love of the Lakers, so this post got forwarded to him. Clint would love Lily to be as dedicated a fan as Isabel to his LA Lakers...but so far Lily only really knows about FSU, the Yankees, and the Dolphins (in terms of her toddler fan attire).
Side note: Clint emailed me back this morning and said the next thing he wants to hear Lily say is "I wanna wear my Jeter!" We'll work on that. :)

So..Wildali's post inspired me to document Lily's days in the joyous period deemed "The Terrible Two's". And I will say, Lily's behavior can be pretty terrible!

It was the weirdest thing. Lily turned two on February 10th, and it was like something switched in her brain, cueing a temper tantrum EVERY.SINGLE.DAY since the page on the calendar turned. Today is March 6th...so that means we've bore witness to roughly 27 tantrums in less than a month. HOORAY for us! lol. :)
Seriously, it was as if the universe decided to personally tell Lily that she was supposed to be a pain in the rear now..and Lily was quick to oblige, haha.

With the age of two comes many wonderful things...I love all that Lily has learned and accomplished and I get so proud of her for doing things independently or for saying new words that I didn't know she knew. But with that independence comes a sense of wanting to control her environment (just like Wildali said!) and unfortunately, that amounts to tough cookies sometimes for Lily when she can't have things JUST as she would like them. And when she would like them...boy, does she lack in patience (we're working on that!). :)

My friend Wildali said her daughter throws fits about bath time and getting dressed. Ding, ding, ding!!! Lily TOO!! Specifically, Lily has major hang-ups about her shoes (or zshoos in Lily-speak). Lily would much rather you cram her old beat up tennis shoes that are two sizes two small on her little nugget feet than her pretty new disney tennis shoes (that actually fit and that Grandma Dawn paid $28 for, btw!)) or any cute sandals, dress shoes, ballet slippers, etc. Hence why Lily wore tennis shoes with her birthday ballerina outfit instead of the cute ballet slippers I bought her for the occasion. But, as in parenting kids of any age, you pick your battles, and the shoe battle tends to end quickly in the favor of little Ms. Lily Kate.

While Lily seems to forget how much she loves being in the bath every single night as we go to undress her, I will say she is probably her cutest right after she gets out of the tub. She runs around the house streaking and laughing if we let her and it always cracks us up. Then we put her in cozy pj's and she knows she looks cute because she will come up to me and tilt her head and smile and say, "Hi mama, Hi mama, Hiiiiii." It is very sweet and usually ends in her climbing in my lap to snuggle. It is those moments that make all the tantrums from the day, week, or month worth it. I love my two year old even if she bosses us around and makes demands like: "Car. Go. Now. Car. Car. Car. Go. Now!!" She says this all while doing the sign for car (pretending like your holding a steering wheel). I think in Lily's mind, if she signs and speaks simultaneously, it will produce quicker results! I'm telling you, this kid knows what she wants. :)

I am going to try and add some pictures this week, because I know pictureless posts are kind of boring. Maybe we'll even try to take a video of Lily in "Terrible two" mode...but Lord knows, I probably wont be able to figure out how to link it to the blog...I can try!

Happy Wednesday, everyone!