Where Are My Terrific Twos?!

Seriously, where are the terrific twos I told myself were going to come on September 6th?  Today has been brutal with Baylor.  No, he's not a tantrum kinda kid; if he does throw a fit it usually lasts less than a minute - knock on wood.  But he's been trying today ... very trying.

So I'm attempting to find the terrific amid the chaos.  

We had our first outing today without the infant car seat.  Can you believe that?!  Mollie, my little girl, has outgrown her infant car seat!  It boggles the mind, really.  Anyhow, going out with a two year-old and a seven month-old without the aid of an infant car seat is tough.

*sigh*  Really tough.

I had to leave Mollie in her high chair while I got Baylor dressed and chased him around the house.  Then after I got them hustled out to the car, Baylor crawled in on Mollie's side while I got her strapped in ... but it took longer than usual and he climbed into the front seat and started pushing buttons.  That wasn't really a big deal until he pushed the button for her door and it started to slide shut on me!  I pushed the door back and got it to stop, but he pushed the button again and shrieked with laughter.  I was pretty much done getting her in, so I let it slide shut, stormed to the driver's side door, and opened it ... letting Baylor tumble out into my arms.  He bonked his head on the way down, so I had to be patient and calm and try to get him to understand that horsing around can get you hurt - yeah, I'm sure that sank in.  We had to make it to the pediatrician's office by 11:50, and by 11:49 we were about twelve minutes away.  I called to tell them we'd be late, and they notified me that my appointment could be given away if I was ten minutes late.  *sigh*  Okay.

We made it there with only seconds to spare, and I still had to somehow get them out of the car and into the office.  The whole way there I had tried to work it out in my head how I was going to manage this - "Take him out first then go around and get her.  No, no, take her out first then ... but where am I going to put her while I unbuckle him?!  Okay, what if I just have the doc come out to the car?  That sounds good to me."  I ended up taking him out first and begging him to keep his back against the (so very dirty) car door while I got her out of her car seat.  That lasted all of ten seconds, and then he was dashing about all around me.  I managed to keep him close to me while I got Mollie out, but before I knew it, every mother's nightmare was occurring right before my eyes: my son ran giggling into the parking lot!  With my daughter in my arms and the diaper bag slung over my shoulder, I dashed after him yelling and screaming - which only served to make him laugh more.  Even when I finally caught up to him at the curb and started talking sternly to him, squeezing his little body probably harder than I should have, he laughed and laughed.

*sigh*

The appointment went well enough, but because we got there late it took longer than I had anticipated and we had to head home right afterwards.  We had lunch (imagine peanut butter and jelly everywhere) and then settled down to read some comics.  Have I mentioned that Baylor loves comics?

The little dude loves the comics!  I love them too, except that the ink tends to get everywhere and the humor is always over his head.  Oh, and he likes to read the same ones over and over and over again.  One day it'll be Baldo, the next Peanuts.  Today he seemed focused on the ones where someone was dealing with leaves, either jumping into a pile of wet leaves (Garfield), having to rake a yard full of leaves (Baldo), or wondering where to purchase a leaf pile (Peanuts).  After reading a few, I told him it was nap time, causing him to kick and cry.  It's a surprise to him everyday that we have to take a nap ... shouldn't this be routine by now?

He wouldn't even go up the stairs the correct way, he wanted to go up backwards.  So I carried both of them simultaneously upstairs and got them into his room for story time.  I asked him to choose two books - like I do everyday - and he chose to hide in his closet, giggling.  I announced that I was going to choose the books since he wasn't around, which usually makes him scurry over to resume his duties, but he stayed in his closet.  After choosing the books, I extracted him from his closet and sat him down.  Unhappy with my choice in reading material, he ran over to his book bag and started to pick it up.

"Not heavy!" he said, straining.  "It's ... not ... heavy!  Ughhhh."

He put it down, looked at me, then picked it up again, his arms barely reaching around the tote, and once again groaned, "It's ... not ... heavy!"

Just then, the tote upturned and all the books spilled out onto the floor.  Baylor looked down and laughed, of course.  Then, he jumped belly first onto the pile and exclaimed, "Jump into pile of leaves!"  He smiled and I couldn't help but smile, too.

And there's the terrific.

He even helped me pick up the books, too!  I'd put one in, then he'd put one in.

Maybe the key to getting through the twos is not to think of them as any one thing but rather an amalgam of a bunch of T's: terrific, terrible, trying, tiring, and so on.  It's just important to focus on the terrific.