The Things You Do At Two

Just some cute (and some not so cute) things that you are doing right now!

The cute:

Most mornings you wake me up by yelling, "It's time to wake up!! The sun wake up! It's time to wake up!!" Then when I walk into your room, you hold up your little hand and sign, "I love you!" and tell me, "Good morning, mommy, I love you. I have to tee-tee."

Your nightly prayers include a list of your friends, almost always in this order, "Grace, Mommy, Daddy, Kate, Aubrey, Jenn, Beck, Kristy, Noah, Tova, Rachel" - then on to other family members and grandparents.

Every prayer ends with, "Tell Poppy hi."

You love to sing (and know all the words to) Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and The Itsy Bitsy Spider - not to mention a ton of Kindermusik songs.

You also love to sing the ABC's - but only with the CD or with someone else. You are starting to learn letter recognition. Any time you see letters in a book, you say, "Look, lots of ABC's."

You walk up to me at random times and give me a hug and say, "I love you, mommy."

The not-so-cute:

You tend to use a low, deep voice when you are upset or think someone else is upset. You make a mean face, get right in someone else's face and use that voice. Sometimes it makes me laugh, because you might be expressing concern for a friend that is upset, but you succeed in only upsetting them more. Other times, it makes me crazy, because I know you are being disrespectful and rude since you aren't getting your way in that moment.

You have taken to hissing and growling at people. You got in trouble in ballet class because you wouldn't quit scaring the other girls with the hissing. We are still working on this. Right now, you are only doing it when you are getting in trouble, not getting your way or feel threatened. You aren't doing it in ballet any longer and are learning to express your feelings in a more productive way when you are upset.

The other day you threw your first ever (and probably not last) full-blown-out tantrum. And I should say Tantrum with a capitol T!! Rachel and I took you to see Horton Hears a Who with your friend Aubrey and her mom and little brother. After the movie, we decided to go to Chik-Fil-A for some lunch and play time. On the way out of the theater, you told me you had to go potty. There was a line a mile long, and the restaurant was less than 4 minutes away, so I made an executive decision to go there instead. For some reason, you got it in your head that I was going to make you tinkle outside in the grass in front of everyone! From the door of the cinema to the truck, it was like you became possessed...you were screaming, crying, hitting, kicking. Rachel and I finally got you strapped into your seat. It took you a couple of minutes to calm down and understand that you were still going to the potty. I looked at Rachel and said something along the lines of what happened to my sweet little girl. Thankfully, you haven't had another one like that (not that you haven't thrown any fits) since. I hope that my reaction was enough to stop it from happening too often!