2 Year Olds - A Whole Different Monster (Part 1)

K recently turned two and I must admit I am a little blind sighted by this little boy. I keep wondering where my little baby went to. So here I am with a two year old, winging it as best I can. It has been going fairly well so far but the more K acts like an actual two year old the more I feel like I don't have a clue about what I'm doing.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore this age K is in. It is full of discovery and learning that is mind blowing some days. Unfortunately it is also a time of testing boundaries and perceived independence. It is especially obvious to me how different K is now because I have H to compare him to. By comparison, infants are EASY. Like all babies she requires time and attention too but the stress level with her is so much less. Maybe I'm just blessed with easy babies but it isn't hard to figure out how to handle H. She needs to sleep, be played with, be fed, and have a clean diaper. If I keep those aspects in check, she is a happy thriving little girl the vast majority of the time. It will get a little more difficult as she becomes increasingly mobile but my house is pretty child friendly by now.


K on the other hand is two now.

• Two year olds aren't just happy playing, sleeping and eating. 
• Two year olds don't sit nicely in the shopping cart while you pick up the weekly essentials.
• Two year olds don't sit there and play with the toys you expect them to play with. 

-Instead-

• Two year olds need to jump from activity to activity at a mind numbing rate.
• Two year olds wants to run all over the store and play hide and seek while you try your damnedest to get some shopping done.
• Two year olds throw said toys at the cat and then proceed to find a nice DVD to scratch and a junk drawer to dump out.

It is all the sudden up to me and my parenting skills (or lack thereof) to help mold my child so that he isn't that crazy two year old monster. The way I structure his day, the activities I give him to do, and my reaction to his actions have everything to do with his behavior and that is a heavy load to bare sometimes all the time. Okay, so maybe this didn't happen overnight, but the last nine plus months have been all about preparing for and adjusting to having two babies. I feel like I finally did that, but now come to realize that I don't have two babies anymore.


I think most first time moms go through this to some extent. It is hard to really grasp how much your child is truly learning until it smacks you in the face. This has caused me to really dig deep and think of what kind of parent I want to be and how I will go about teaching my child.