No rest for this waddling mama!

The "terrible-twos", I fear, have entered into our lives, and with no hesitation or forewarning! I know all parents, well most, experience this stage, and I am not alone, so this is not an effort to vent, or for anyone to feel pitty, or anything of the like... I simply am finding humor in it today as I reflect on the weekend and thought I would share some of our experience. From one weekend to the next, it seems, Emma went from this sweet, beautiful, "obedient" toddler to this sweet, beautiful, defiant toddler without the blink of an eye! "No!" has lost all meaning and has almost triggered an "oh yea?" response which leads our sweet angel to keep going after the thing we say "no!" to. Opening cabinets, even if we stand and hold the cabinet shut, she persists in tears to attempt to open it through our strength, stairs, cups of water on the table, etc... This weekend, I think my blood pressure sky rocketed at least 5 times as I made every effort to maintain my composure, grasp on to my patience, and teach Emma that "No!" means "No!" and we mean it.

These moments don't go without some laughter though... laughter which I have to hide until she's not looking if I want her to take me seriously, right? Well, she recently discovered the cat door. And if I didn't know better, she's trying to use it to escape her "No!" filled world since she's coming in to her independent, exploratory and very confident self... I can imagine she feels quite restricted. Trying to explain that when we say "no" it's for her safety just isn't cutting it. Well, as many times as we have told her "No, you can't go out the cat door", I still find her attempting to escape, many times hitting her head on the way in or out, or both, which inevitably results in crying. This weekend, however, she's mastered the exit and entry to the point she is able to get her upper torso through the cat door, and make her way back in without a sound. I couldn't help but capture it on camera before I pulled her out and, yes, you guessed it, gave her another "No cat door lecture" (keeping in mind her lectures are 5 words max) and walked her to the living room...

This was one for sharing, however, she also learned the rough side and what could happen if we don't listen when mommy or daddy says "No", too. Those moments are when my blood pressure rises because as much as we try to prevent them from harm's way, sometimes kids have to learn the hard way and us as parents grieve for their pain as we mend their boo-boos while fuming on the inside and wanting to say "I TOLD YOU NOT TO!".  But, "I told you so" must be kept to yourself and the "I'm sorry you are hurt" must come through and take over your emotions. It's such an emotional tug-of-war at times but I am learning that kids will get hurt, and I can't prevent EVERY injury...while this doesn't prevent me from having complete anxiety when we are in an environment where she could get hurt (which, for a toddler, is really anywhere), I am learning to accept, especially with how active she is, she most likely won't escape the next couple years without some bandaids, arnica, ice packs and tears of pain - though I will try my darndest to prevent it all!!

Even with the "terrible-twos" on the horizon, she never seizes to bring joy and laughter to our lives! She's coming in to her own little personality and has become so expressive with her eyes and her eyebrows. Not to mention using more words; "Uh-uh" when you ask her a question and she opts for a negative response, nodding of the head when she wants to say "yes", "guys", "bye", this weekend she said "up" when she woke up from her nap and wanted me to pick her up from her crib, "uh oh" and recently said "Dillon" (Dillon is Auntie Pokie Jo's younger son). In addition, she has mastered the animal noises of dogs, cats, monkeys (with arm motion), tigers, bears, roosters, elephants, and more. We were at a restaurant yesterday and all of a sudden she started the "Rawr!" noise so I looked up and thought, where does she see a tiger? Sure enough, the restaurant had art work on the wall of masks of animals, a tiger was one, and as soon as we figured that out she started meowing to the cat mask that was right next to it. She is learning so much every day and is non stop entertainment to say the least :)