Got willful?

The last couple of months, I've really been enjoying the kids. We've had a nice run of them playing nicely together, handling school/daycare well, more or less following instructions and sleeping somewhat decently. And then I got a two year old. Seriously, my darling angel baby has turned into a terror seemingly overnight. How did I forget this stage? It's like she's a new walker again somehow.

Here at the classic traits:

• Throwing things on purpose.
• Throwing things and then stepping on them for good measure.
• Throwing her dinner.
• Stepping on her dinner once it hits the floor.
• Pouring her juice on the floor.
• Stepping in it for good measure.
• Putting toilet paper in the toilet.
• Turning on the water.
• Pouring it on the floor.
• Stepping in it for good measure.
• Running away from me in public.
• Running away from me INTO THE STREET.

Today she also managed to take off her diaper when she was supposed to be napping, pooping and throwing it on the floor. Fortunately she was in her crib so she couldn't step on it for good measure.

I've decided it's time to crack down. We're doing time outs now (I think she had five this afternoon, including when she ran away from me at the grocery store parking lot. And laughed. I could have strangled her I was so scared. And mad.) I figure I need to try to instill some discipline now or it's just going to get worse. Groan. I don't like that part! And what happened to my precious darling angel baby? Sigh.

Oh, and completely unrelated, I saw (500) Days of Summer. It was good. Bjorn watched the second half and liked it -- high praise since it's a teen/twentish romantic comedy.

Retraining

With the temper tantrum of a few weeks ago, I've been reading and rereading books for strategies on dealing with him. One thing that seems to be helping is making a real effort to get him into bed at a decent time. I'm now giving both kids a bath more or less at the same time. Meg loves to lay on the sling and kick the water while Andy likes to make birthday cake with the cups. It's a pleasant enough way to spend 20 minutes and then Andy can sit in the tub by himself for a bit while I get Meg dressed and ready for bed.

I'm also trying to not go in to him as much at night. His room is right near ours so if he cries out for one of us, he's loud and hard to ignore, but we're working on it. And if we do go it, it's not to cuddle, it's to quickly fix something (find a binky, covers, etc.) and leave without fanfare. The theory is that if it's not fun, he'll lose interest. A work in progress, but it helps to be trying something.

The funny thing about the sleep thing is now he's waking up to go pee. It's great and a positive step, but I find him getting up to pee in the morning is often before he would have liked to get up so he's tired when he wakes up. It's something we're all going to have to adjust to, but I am so proud of him for getting up out of bed and doing it himself. He's really catching on (fingers crossed).

I'm also working to give him more control. Instead of offering him two spoons or cups to choose from, I've put all his stuff in a drawer in the kitchen. Then if he complains he doesn't like something, I tell him to get another one. I'm also working to redirect him if he complains, which sometimes works. So if he complains that he wants X, Y or Z, I tell him to go get it (within reason, of course, the wine is mine).

Meg is just a darling. She isn't rolling over yet, but she sure can arch her back and kick her legs, like she might want to. Right now it's great to know I can put her down and she won't go anywhere. I know that won't last long. She's now usually going to bed around 9ish and waking up 6:30ish with a wake up call in the night sometime between 2 and 4. For me, it's great to just have an hour or so to myself before bed to relax without either one of them.

And speaking retraining, I'm going back to work in two weeks. On the one hand, it will be nice to be with adults for part of the day and do something other than clean diapers and do laundry, but I'm starting to get a little anxious about it. I'm overall better than I was before I went back after Andy, but I can still feel it. When I start to get worked up, I just remind myself that if it doesn't work, we'll change it. Nothing has to be forever. My plan is to work four half days through May and then go back to four full days a week starting in June. I'm hopeful the half days will help us used to a new routine at a new daycare with two kids. I like that the new daycare is just a mile away -- that will certainly make it easier if we forget something.

My son, the brute

Andy has been getting in trouble at school this week. Yes, my sweet little boy - in trouble. Apparently he's discovered that it's fun to throw rocks at other kids on the playground and has been spending some time in time out as a result. He has also decided that he doesn't want to follow instructions and when his teacher tries to get them all on the floor in a circle for story time, he giggles and runs around the room instead. This has also been landing him in time out.

Since we got the news yesterday, we've been talking about his behavior with him a lot. Of course, there aren't that many teachable moments at 7:30 at night after a long week of school. I imagine we'll be spending time over the next few weeks reinforcing the rules. It's official, not only is he not a baby anymore, he's not even really a toddler either, but a full-fledged little boy. Wow.

Oh no, part deux

Sadly, The Goodnight Train suffered an injury to the hands of my two-year-old yesterday. After waking up from his nap, Andy decided to rip the last page out of the book. The page didn't have any words on it and just had the tag from the Fairfax County Library on it so I could see his point that it was boring, but still. Ripping books is bad. Plus, now I have to go to the already standoffish librarians and fess up to our crime. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a long line of incidents where I/we have to confess to breaking or stealing something. Yay. More stuff to look forward to!

On the flip side, Andy was a darling this evening. Well, after his first time out that is. He kept standing on the dining room chair and after I warned him once and he did it again, I calmly picked him up and put him on the stoop of the stairs for his first official time out. I did was my sister suggested, I told him what he did wrong and put the kitchen timer on two minutes. He sat sadly and whimpered a bit toward the end (funny how looong two minutes can be sometimes - it's the same in indoor soccer at the end of a half when you're desperately holding on to a lead). Afterwards, I had him tell me he was sorry for standing on the chair and the rest of the evening, he was a perfect darling. I like to think it was due to our excellent parenting, but I have a feeling that's a little far fetched.

Tomorrow we're off to Annapolis for the baptism of a friend's daughter. I was honored to be named godparent (we had training today, which sounds ridiculous, but was actually kind of nice). Andy is excited to go see more singing. Seriously.

Someone needs to warn the potty chair

After Andy's success standing up with the potty, he's now fascinated by it. Of course, he's never fascinated with it at a time when he could do anything with it. Rather, he usually does his business and then later gets an interest. This morning, Bjorn took off Andy's diaper and asked him if he'd like to go to the potty. Andy sprinted over to it and continued to thrust his body at it in the hopes that some pee would come out. He was practically mounting the poor Baby Bjorn potty trying to shove his boy parts at the potty trying to get them to work. Unfortunately, all this excitement made him poop. On the floor. It was totally gross and I couldn't convince him to turn around and actually get it into the potty. Clearly, we're a ways off actual potty training since I don't think he is able to recognize when his body is telling him it's time to go. The whole thing is pretty amusing. Well, when it's not totally disgusting.

Andy is also going through a bit of a hitting phase. Over the weekend, he kept hitting me and Bjorn and didn't get that it wasn't funny. I tried to give him a time out, but he still seemed to think it was a game. I eventually put him to bed and he seemed to forget about it overnight although this morning he hit me and smiled, waiting for a game to begin. I held his arm and said, "No hitting" and after about 30 seconds, he began to sulk, which is how he usually reacts when I tell him no. I definitely need to read up on this discipline thing.