The Terrible Twos...

I seriously thought it was a myth.

With Connah, we sailed through his second year in a blissful sea of learning and adventure. The amount of knowledge that was packed inside his head during that year was epic, and he quietly analyzed it all and stored it away for future reference.

The Attack however, seems to think that being two is something that the universe has done specifically to irritate him.

He learns. He learns a lot. But he does it loudly. There is no quiet contemplation with the Attack - he works through his confusion emotionally, verbally, and right smack in your face.

One of his biggest tantrum inducing conversations goes like this:

The Attack: "Carry me."

Me: "No Ash, you don't need a carry, that's why you have legs."

The Attack: "No! I neeeeeeeed a CARRYYYYYYYY!!!" AHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AHHHHH WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

This continues until he gets distracted. Sometimes two minutes, sometimes an hour. Fortunately, this list of things capable of distracting a meltdown of this magnitude is fairly long, but nothing works every time. It's a matter of making your way through the list until something clicks:

Me: "Ash, do you want to play cars?"

The Attack: "WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NO!!! CARRY ME!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. *Stamps foot repeatedly.*

Me: "Do you want to hold Koko?

The Attack: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WAAAAAAAA EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! *Throws himself on the floor.*

Me: "Do you want to hide in the cupboard?

The Attack: "O.K." *Picks himself up off the floor and smiles, which is adorable even though he is covered in tears and snot and dog hair from rolling around on the ground.*

This happens 17 times a day.

These episodes are interspersed with bouts of intense hyperactivity, (he likes to run at you at full speed and then launch himself onto you while screaming BOINGGGG! It's more fun if you're not expecting it,) and slightly exaggerated accusations tossed in Connah's direction, (he once woke up in the middle of the night to tell me that Connah had just kicked him in the face. Connah was sleeping in his own room on the other side of the house.)

He loves trying new things. As long as they go exactly the way he imagines they will in his head.

His first trip to the snow was awesome, for six minutes. Then he slipped over. He stared at that snow like it had just committed an unimaginable act of betrayal, his brain couldn't seem to accept the fact that snow is cold and slippery. He then spent the best part of the next two hours crying that he wanted to go home.

The beach was the same: Yay! Sand! Sand castles! Water! Digging holes! Fun!!! But wait... The sand is hot, and the water moves! TOWARDS YOU! HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!

He is still very sensitive to loud noises, (unless he is making them,) so will often be seen trucking around with a pair of earmuffs on.

Reasons to wear earmuffs:

1) Someone is vacuuming, or mowing lawns.

2) The scary part in Shrek is coming up.

3) A bird is singing too loud.

4) Connah wants to wear the earmuffs.

If earmuffs are unavailable due to them falling in the toilet / the dog eating them / leaving the house without them, then I must cup my hands over his ears really tight. This is a little disturbing to do in public places, as the way he likes me to have my hands kinda makes it look like I'm trying to pull his head off. I'm not, just so we're clear on that.

During the times when he's not melting down, or being betrayed by the world, The Attack is hilarious. He picks up adult speech readily, and easily incorporates it into his own vocabulary. When asked why he wasn't eating last night, his response was: "My capsicum tastes a little funky - it's probably rotten." Awesome.

"That's OK, though" has become his catch phrase as of late:

Me: "Ash, we need to get your shoes on, we're already late."

The Attack: "That's O.K, though."

Me: "Ash, don't put your cup upside down on your head, you just spilled water all over yourself."
The Attack: "That's O.K, though."

Me: "Go to the bathroom before you pee all over the floor!"
The Attack: "That's O.K, though."

Ashden is funny, cheeky and adorable - which is a fairly lethal combination. He makes the whole world grin like a idiot dancing in the whiskers of baby kittens.

And then he'll realize that the car he is holding in his hand is the blue Porsche, when he actually wanted to play with the blue Lamborghini, and he'll explode. Like a bomb. It. Is. Spectacular.

He turns three in September. I'm kinda hoping three comes with a tantrum switch, or at least a touch more logic.

Four more months...


xox

The Birds and the Bees...

I am a thinker. I like to think things through before I speak.

This makes me fairly incompetent in social situations, because people generally don't like to wait for extended periods of time to get answers to questions such as "How are you?" or "What have you been up to lately?".

I have adapted somewhat, because the future I once envisioned for myself - the future that involved me shunning human companionship completely, and frolicking off into the forest to live with the fae and be at one with the universe (don't laugh, I know you think it sounds awesome) - no longer exists for me. I have chosen to live here, in all the messy mortal glory that comes with being a wife and mother.

Unfortunately, It also comes with responsibilities like small talk, because lets face it, you're not gonna let your kid go for a play date at the crazy mute lady's house.
So I lie. I tell people what they want to hear, but often just end up rambling because I really don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Dealing with questions from my boys however, demands more effort.

My unwillingness to lie to them, coupled with my possum-caught-in-the-headlights reaction to questions, makes for an almost inevitable disaster. But, I've found disaster can be avoided with a few simple techniques:

#1. Immediately upon hearing it, repeat the question back, preferably rephrased.
This has two benefits, the first being that you are showing that you are listening and interested in the question (and also making sure you have it right. If I had implemented this earlier, I could have avoided the long racial conversation I had with Connah when he asked why his friend was a different colour to him. Seriously, I was rambling about genetics and DNA for twenty minutes, which was pretty hard, 'cause I know crap-all about genetics and DNA. Also, completely unnecessary because as It turns out, his friend had really bad sunburn.)
The second (and probably most important) reason for this is that it buys you time to gather your scattered thoughts and come up with a coherent answer.

#2. Do not offer candy and / or cookies as a ploy in order to distract the child and buy yourself more time to think.
By the time they finish eating (and you've come up with an explanation worthy of an award of some kind) they will have lost all interest in anything you have to say unless it directly relates to them getting more candy.

#3. Whatever it is that you come up with to say, simplify it.

Expanding a small child's vocabulary is great, but expecting them to understand you when you're explaining about the moral and ethical dilemmas of lying is unrealistic. To avoid becoming a human thesaurus during your speech, save vocabulary lessons for another time

#4. While it's important to tell the truth, it's fine to omit things that are not age appropriate.
Is it really necessary for your toddler to know the exact blood spatter pattern of the possum you hit with your car last night?

How about why your neighbor, Mrs Jones sneaks out of her house every night that her husband goes away on business trips?
This is where editing comes in handy. The possum died. Mrs Jones is visiting a friend. Unless they specifically ask for details you're pretty safe.

However if the child has a genuine interest in something you deem inappropriate, you would have to judge whether they are mentally / emotionally able to understand and cope with the information, and go from there. Just try not to raise a serial killer - that would be bad.

So, keeping in mind my complete inability to answer questions like a normal person, and the subsequent list of rules I need to refer to in order to make any sense at all, this is what I came up with during my first attempt at answering one of the most feared questions of parents everywhere:

Connah: "Where do babies come from?"

Me: (Repeat. Maybe this has something to do with sunburn too...)"Do you mean how are babies made? Or where do they come from?"

Connah: "No, I mean how do you get one?"

Me: (The cabbage patch. No, stalks bring them! Crap! No lying! ) "Well, when you're grown up, you have to find a girl that you want to share one with and then she will grow it in her belly until it gets big enough to be born. Then you have a baby.

Connah: "I have to share it with a girl?! Can't I just grow one in my own belly?"

Me: (Well with the advances in medical technology, it is actually possible for a man to carry a baby to term... Edit: Unnecessary information at this time...) "No, only girls grow babies in their bellies. Boys don't have the right parts inside them to grow one."

Connah: "What if two boys want to share a baby?"

Me: (Not the time for an adoption or gay rights speech... simplify...) "Then they have to find a girl who doesn't want to keep her baby, and ask if they can look after it."

Connah: "But only girls grow the babies?"

Me: "Yes."

Connah: "Mummy?"

Me: "Yes Connah?"

Connah: "When I'm grown up, will you ask a girl to grow me a baby, cause ummm, I'm gonna be busy that day."





xox