Frustrations of a Toddler

Things aren't always sweet and sappy over here. When we were in Illinois, after an outburst of upsettedness,  my mom said, "you know, this what the terrible twos are like." They can be happily playing, la la la, then out of the blue SCREAM! I think their inability to communicate vocally is really frustrating them. They just can't tell us what they want.

Then there's a whole lot of taking each other's things.

Which leads to screaming, biting (how do I stop this?!), pushing, and pulling hair.

They also like to do those things when they're very excited. Dash has found it particularly amusing to hit my face with hard things. Seriously, he'll be waving something around, notice my head, grin a little bit, and come at me. Not cool.

On top of it all, there's Parent Possessiveness. AKA jealousy. I'll give you an example. Dash decides he wants his dad all to himself and sits on his lap. Liam comes over anyway and joins him on his lap. Dash goes completely berserk and either falls onto the floor in a weeping heap of distraught or does all he can to shove Liam off the lap and out of his father's life for good.

Another example. I'm holding Liam. Liam decides he wants to play with a toy on the floor so I set him down. Dash sees I'm free, wants up, and I pick him up. Liam sees that I've picked up his brother and wails because I've obviously abandoned him forever.

Do they think that when I'm touching their brother, it's a sign that I must love him more? Man, it's tiring.

It's actually getting a bit better. A lot of times I can convince them it's okay- I can share a lap with both of you, I love you both. For a couple weeks, after waking up, whichever boy was picked up out of his crib second took at least five minutes to recover from crying about being picked up second. And usually the first one starts crying in the middle of the second one's crying because I'm paying more attention to the second boy (he's crying, afterall). That was rather miserable.

But, you know, we get over it. Food and drink help. They're mostly very happy boys, just hitting the Terrible Twos (or whatever) a little early. 'Cause they're advanced and all that. I'm so proud. Ahem.