This month can be adequately summed up with one small word:
No!
No! I won't eat my dinner!
No! I don't like that!
No! I won't hug you!
No! I don't want to do that!
No! I won't take a bath!
No! I don't want to wear that shirt!
No! No! No!
And the one that cuts like a knife...
No! I don't love you, Mommy!
Ouch.
We made it almost to the end of the infamous terrible two's with very little terrible, but apparently she's been saving it up for one magnificent grand finale.
Seriously, I have no clue what happened to my sweet, loving, agreeable, little girl. It's like someone flipped a switch this month. She disagrees simply to disagree. No task is easy these days. Mundane routines that went off without a hitch for months are now individual battles of wits. She fights with us over every little thing for the sake exerting her independence. I know she's trying to understand and confirm her identity in the world, but these power struggles are getting old quickly.
I've always tried to let her make decisions when possible. Instead of asking her open-ended questions, I offer her choices of a few acceptable acceptable answers. When she picks one, it's a win/win. She feels like she is in control of her world and she ends up eating something healthy for a snack. This tactic has worked so well that I smugly thought I had it all figured out, but she turned the tables this month.
"Sweetie, do you want an apple or banana for a snack?"
"I want cookies!"
Shit. She cracked the code. Thankfully, reverse psychology is still working to a degree. She is so determined to drive us mad, she'll choose anything that we don't offer.
"Do you want to wear your pink jacket or the purple one?" Both are light and it's really getting too cold for her to wear them now.
"No! I want to wear my princess coat, Mommy! That's the one I want!" Her heavy winter coat, the one I wanted her to wear in the first place. Success in this case, but it's not a fool-proof method. It's backfired several times.
I really hope she gets through this stage quickly. We both hate to resort to yelling but at times she gives us no other choice. She tantrums, and cries, and screams over the silliest things, and the only way to get her attention is to yell louder than she is. It takes forever to calm her down and get back to the task at hand. She completely tunes us out and refuses to listen to anything. It's exhausting.
I know it's probably normal and something she just needs to work through, but I still can't help but wonder if something triggered this immediate turn in her behavior. By no means is it constant but we can count on a few outbursts each day. Her dad asked the teachers at daycare about her behavior and she's had a few incidents there, too.
Other than her sudden over-appreciation of the word 'no', everything else is going well. Potty training is a thing of the past and diapers seem like a distant memory at this point. We are about seven weeks into this new world and there has been no signs of regression whatsoever. She's had no accidents, night or day, so I think it's a done deal. I gave all my leftover diapers to my sister for my niece, the changing table is gone from her room (well, actually I'm using it in her closet for storage), and I've thrown away the diaper bag. There's no going back now.
Punky has been been really into coloring again lately, and I've had to buy her some new books and tablets. I swear she colored for six hours off an on one day recently. She tries to draw letters and shapes. Sometimes she's close, sometimes she scribbles, sometimes she uses her imagination and sees things no one else would even consider in her works of art.
Our bedtime reading has been taken over by longer and longer books these days and by a greater variety than she's allowed in the past. She's taking a greater interest in words and can recognize a handful on sight now. I still say she'll be reading before age four.
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