Terrible Twos and More

God Help Me.

Whining, hitting, throwing, refusing to nap, crying, temper tantrums, throwing food, laying down on the ground in public, whining some more, and most of all testing my limits.  James is constantly trying me and testing our rules and consequences.  There is no better word that describes the last couple of weeks than TERRIBLE.  His number one current goal in life is to get a rise out of me.

Playing with and throwing food again… something he hasn’t done in many months.

Refusing to nap… he is FAR from dropping his nap, by the way.  He was an absolute terror the days he didn’t sleep last week.  I left him in the crib during naptime to enforce it, where he cried, kicked, and banged his head on the crib for an hour and a half every day.  {While I stared at the monitor hoping that he wouldn’t jump out!}

He gave up after a few days.

He’ll do anything for attention right now.  He’s even resorted to gagging himself.

And undressing.  Which is quite a milestone in toddlerhood.  And was quite hard for me to keep a straight face when I looked down to see this little chest/big belly combo.

Mr. Independent was working on undressing for a couple of weeks.  If you see my kid streaking, it’s not my fault.

His teacher said he put up a fight while getting his picture taken for his ID Card.  Looks like he lost this one.

We’re also working on No Running In The House.  Although Justin says boys will be boys.  I know he’s right; if only James could never bleed, bruise or fall, I’d be happy.  Who knows… parenting is trial and mostly error, right?

That’s the kind of bump that looks bad from any angle.  The kind of bump that happened faster than I could stop it, but is slow motion in my memory.  The kind of bump that almost took us to the ER and made me want to throw up.

The swelling went down in a couple of hours.  He was tear-free in 10 minutes.  I was a wreck.

Despite a little food throwing, James is usually a great eater.

I made soup with ground turkey, beans and a bunch of vegetables.  One of my favorite winter meals.  I was shocked when James gobbled it up.  He did accidently dip his elbow in it, spill it all over, and ruin a shirt, but I was just glad that he ate it!

We went out to breakfast last weekend as a family.  James ate nearly all my eggs, a couple pancakes, Justin’s fruit, some hash browns and some of Justin’s omelet.  Maybe we should order him his own breakfast.

We went to the park afterwards and watched James run around for over an hour.  He was so happy that I made a mental note: take my growing toddler to the park much more often!

My baby LOVES applesauce.  I even buy the No Sugar Added kind, and he eats it nearly every day.  So, I made some of my own.

I hadn’t made applesauce yet this year.  I love cooking, although I’m not sure it was much of a money saver.  This is a whole bag of apples. {FYI it’s better to use a variety of sweet apples, but I just didn’t want to go back to the store.}

James and I both caught a little bug a couple of weeks ago.  Not fun at all, but with sickness comes snuggles.  I melt to these few and far between cuddle moments with my babies.

And with sickness comes medicine.  Even for bear.  He gave bear a talk, emphatically stating that if bear doesn’t take his medicine, he doesn’t get a lollipop!  And then he pretended to give him the petroleum jelly.

With sickness also comes a special dinosaur cup to assist in drinking lots of fluids.  Thank you, Dinosaur Cup.  You serve the best ice water!

We make sure to pretend to call our friends from school on our days in.

We also make sure to wear Christmas jammies well into the new year.  {I love how he looks so casual, talking with his hand to his bud, Conner.}

Once we were feeling better and the rain finally stopped, our backyard was calling our name.

I’m sure the plants needed some digging up.  {This was a no-nap day, and I stood there thinking “choose my battles, do I fight this one?”  I chose not to.}

Lately, the lessons are learned the hard way.  I can tell James not to swing his little puzzle fishing pole around, or he can learn the hard way.  By swinging it around like nunchucks and hitting himself in the face.  If James understood sarcasm and I had no empathy, I could say “Told ya so” 50 times a day.

We took the little guy to church on Sunday.  Sometimes I think he looks like a three year old.

:(

Thank you, God, for giving me patience.  I love my sweet baby more than life itself, but I’m not one of those mothers that will tell you everything is perfect.  I’m far from perfect, but I sure do have a cute kid.

Thank goodness for baby gates.

Thank goodness for early bedtimes and adult nights.

And thank goodness for Daddy Help.

Here’s to turning two in a month and a half and all that comes with it!