Lately Scarlette has started to feel frustrated by her slight delay in language skills. She wants very badly to express herself fully and accurately and so she gets mad when she can’t articulate what she is feeling. We’ve been working on identifying and defining our feelings a lot around here. “Scarlette feels frustrated because Scarlette wants to play with this toy but Mommy says that first we need to clean up our puzzles.”
(That makes me sound like I’m really on top of this parenting thing but you just wait until you read the rest of this story.)
She has also taken to identifying everything as hers. “My mommy. My daddy. My house.” The other day we walked into my mother’s room and Scarlette ran over to the the jewelry stand and yelled “OH WOW! WOOK AT ALL MY THINGS!”
And she’s started tattling on me. If I tell that baby no, you best believe she is running straight to whomever else is around to tell them “My mommy say I not wead any books wite now but I weally weally want to wead da books but my mommy say no wead da books anymore!”
If no one else is around, she tells me that she needs to call her daddy. The other day I thought that she was just missing him because he had been working some long shifts but when he answered the phone she said “Daddy my mommy say I no can hab da chocowate milk anymore!”
Last week I was cutting up an apple while my mother stood in the doorway chatting with me. She has a tendency to run up behind me and sort of hang on the back of my legs whenever I am holding any sort of sharp object. It’s like she has some sort of sixth sense for danger. I told her no the first time and when she ran at me again I put my hand out, palm up, and said “Scarlette, do not jump on mommy while she is cutting this apple.”
That child turned to my mother and said “JANIE MY MOMMY SAY NO ZHUMPING AND DEN SHE PUSHED ME!”
I did no such thing! I’ve never laid a hand on that baby and for the purpose of this story I will tell you that we do not use spanking as discipline.
My mother said “Scarlette, Mommy did not push you.”
And Scarlette said “Yesh she DID! She DID push me!”
So then I said “Scarlette, Mommy did not push you. Mommy just put her hand out to say STOP to you.”
And she smiled sweetly at me and asked “Mommy, why you so fwustwated wight now?”
Later when Jeff came home she told him that I had pushed her. Lord only knows what my child is telling her teachers.
The other night Scarlette snuck some M&Ms. I had found her a few days before with the entire bag. I thought that she had eaten a ton of M&Ms and anticipated a tummyache but apparently what she did was stash handfuls of them in hiding places around the house. My kid is stealthy, y’all.
She had already had a treat so I reminded her that I had said no more M&Ms and asked her to give them to me. She quickly stuffed them in her mouth while yelling “NO I PUT DEM IN MY MOUF!”
Then she ran to Jeff and said “My mommy say I no can hab da MenANens because she WEALLY CRANKY WITE NOW!”
That same night my mother and I were talking and we turned around to see Scarlette ferreting out more M&Ms from their hiding place in her play kitchen. Her cheeks were full and when I said “Scarlette! Mommy said no more M&Ms!” she answered “But now Sharyut hab FOUR MenANens!”
Then I asked her if she had followed directions she said “No!” while dancing a little jig. I told her that the next she may not have any M&Ms because of how she did not listen and follow directions that night.
So she ran into the bedroom and told Jeff “My mommy say no MenANen tomowwow and I weally wanna talk about dis!”
After that she proceeded to run back and forth across the living room shouting “WELCOME TO DA NEW AGE, TO DA NEW AGE!”
Probably she was on a bit of a MenANen sugar high.
Yesterday she again refused to put her puzzles away and I gave her a warning.
She looked right at me and said “Mommy! I sho fwustwated about dis I going to tinkle in da fwoor!”
And before I could even say a word that child peed right in the middle of the floor.
Ever since Scarlette turned two years old everyone in the entire world has shaken their head at me when asking her age and responded with “The terrible twos are nothing, you just wait until THREE.”
With less than a month to go until her third birthday, I feel as though Scarlette has really embraced this idea.
Welcome to the new age indeed.
