Hi. My name is Holy Terror. I will be taking over your lovely daughter from time to time, without notice, and then suddenly leave as soon as I came.
Thank you.
Oh dear! What is up with the impending 2.5 year/30 month milestone? Are all kids like this? Please tell me they all go through this phase or I am going to wonder if my daughter has signs of being bi-polar. The tears! Oh the tears! The fake tears! The real tears! The throwing of items! The throwing down of the self! The anguish! The hatefulness!
and then the love. The “I love you Mommy” after 5 minutes of ranting and raving. I am not getting this at all. The biggest problem, I see, is that it’s making me go up and down with her (and my turnaround isn’t as fast as Stella’s).
Most of the time, she is a dear. We giggle together, we cook in the kitchen (smoothies after nap time is a current favorite), we take Scuppy for walks and run run run along the sidewalks towards the horses. But then we get home, 5 minutes past when we usually eat lunch and BAM! Psycho child.
At least we’ve figured out that most of the outbursts are related to when she has eaten (and of course, when she hasn’t) but sometimes we have no clue why the world dissolves in a cacophony of crying. Ah well. Maybe this is why this age was dubbed the “Terrible” twos – although I have word from playground moms that 3 was horrendous. Oh dear.
4 comments:
Don't worry--you're not crazy. Stella sounds just like the 2.5 yo's we've known around here. Have you come across the Gesell Institute books, Your One Year Old, Your Two Year Old, etc.? They read as dated and culturally contingent to me in many respects (e.g. X is the age at which girls begin to play hopscotch-???), but real child psychologists seem to have a lot of respect for them. And one of the major themes in them is that in those early years the 1/2-birthday milestones seem to be the moments of disequilibrium for most kids (read: challenging behavior and frazzled parents), while the actual birthdays tend to coincide with the points at which kids find a new happy balance and are again (momentarily) at peace with themselves and the world.
To wit, it's not terrible twos but indeed, terrible two-and-a-halfs!
Izz is doing the exact same things. One moment it's great, the next a meltdown - and in a split second she's back to normal. Makes me feel a bit like whiplash.
I think Stel is trying to tell you that maybe Mama and her REAL Daddy should go take a vacation and let her come play with Penelemelanie and Lump and Apryl :)
And she's behaving exactly like several other small girls I've known. (Boys, for some reason, don't seem to have the same crazy mood swings.) Hugs and love to you all -- it'll get better.
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