She might be cutting her second-year molars, as her sleep has been awful for five days and nights now. Virtually no napping, staying up late (9:00-10:00 p.m.), still waking early (6:00 a.m.) and waking hourly all night, night after night. Mama is tired and grumpy at this phase.
Meanwhile, Mary seems to be ever closer to the contrariness of two. I can still elicit her happy cooperation in a task if she thinks she's being a big girl doing something herself. But if I ask her to go somewhere she doesn't want to go, do something she doesn't want to do, or prohibit her from doing something, she now screams, "NO!" at me. She has also begun throwing tantrums: running around the room screaming while she looks for a soft landing (so calculating!), then flinging herself onto the ground, face first, hitting her first, and kicking her feet (often while narrating, "Kick, kick, kick, kick!"). The first time she did it (several times) was in a doctor's office lobby, so that was (not) fun. Also, she has begun hitting her brother with toys deliberately and has thrown some at me (and had good aim).
So my sweet pea has experienced her first time outs as well!
This contrariness has resulted in an almost full reversion on her potty training! Here she had been in underwear full-time for about three weeks and now she is behaving (nearly) like a fully diapered baby. It has nothing to do with capability. She stays dry overnight, and she showed me her cheerful ability for almost a month. Now any suggestion that she sit on the potty results in immediate tantrum simply because I was the one who made the suggestion. I'm not sure what to do and it will depend on how long this phase lasts.
This sounds like such a negative report, but Mary is still a darling and precious and cute. She remains incredibly loving and gregarious (and seems to be in a new phase of clinginess to me, crying if she suspects I might leave the room). She's just coming into her own a little bit more!
Reading books with BrotherI am not a fan of fruit juice for kids, so I don't keep it in the house. But I did buy some Trader Joe's juice boxes in an effort to see if I could get John to drink anything other than water (the answer is a resounding: NO). So now I'm trying to use up the little pack of juice boxes with Mary. She likes them, as you can see.
I LOVE the looking for a soft landing and how she narrates the kicking!! SOOO funny. xo Mary, you have a friend in me :)
ReplyDeleteNo real advice on the 2yo choleric battle of the wills. I tend to avoid the battles by finding a way to let her have the autonomy she wants. I can win, but it takes too much energy. So I don't fight her if I can help it. I also found Agnes can negotiate. We have gone through the same reversion stuff with the potty training b/c she loathes my suggestion (and if she isn't going to potty before leaving the house, she is going to wear a diaper). But, I can often say things like, "If you make on the potty I will give you a piece of fruit" or something, and that has better results. (I only do that when it's truly optional that she goes.)
LOVE this girl's feist!!! :)
ReplyDeleteI KNOW it's a challenge, but I'm really excited to see what sort of grown ups these feisty kiddos are going to become. I'm fairly certain mine's going to conquer a few mountains.