Being Almost Two

Riley has a lot of moments where I shake my head and say "Are you being 2 again?" When she insists on picking her own clothes and ends up in head to toe pink. Afterward she adds every plastic necklace in her collection and a dinosaur baseball cap. Sometimes she insists panties and a bike helmet is dressed. Sometimes she demands cookies for breakfast, you know, the usual stuff.

She has incredible mood swings. She'll get all excited about something (ie Grandma coming over, going to Boo's or having some watermelon) and moments later be upset about it. The other day she was screaming in excitement to go see Boo and then I asked her to come get dressed which got a mini meltdown response. I talked her into it and then we got out the door all smiles, but in the driveway she refused to get in the car. I have no idea why. Through herself on the driveway and screamed. I asked her if she wanted to stay home and go to time out instead of going to Boo's and she answered "time out!". Unfortunately she'd called my bluff this time. I'd say I'm more consistent than most, but I was not prepared to follow through this time. I got her in the car seat and she played happily. When we pulled up in their driveway I said, "Do you want to go see your friends?" "no!". She did go in and play and I have no idea what that stuff was all about.

Frustration is the biggest thing. When we don't understand what she wants she looses her cool quickly (increasingly dramatically depending on level of sleep). It's understandable that now that we know what she's saying 90% of the time the other 10% is super frustrating. Welcome to the second year (almost) Miss Roo.

There are also moments when it's a complete blessing. Like not having to change poopy diapers anymore. This morning Riley saw her brother all dressed in his yellow summer camp shirt and said "Camp!". I replied "Yup, Isaac's ready for camp." Riley sighed slightly and then said "Eye-Gick, camp. Help me." She paused pointing to her back and said "Rye-Ee backpack". Now, dumb old Mommy figured it out. "You want to help take Isaac to camp and wear your backpack?". When I take her with me to drop off or pick up Isaac she wears her Dora backpack so I can hang on to her. "Yes!" she replied.

I was so proud of her for not getting frustrated and screaming or throwing herself to the floor. She just gradually added more information to the statement with the words at her disposal. I got her dressed so they she could go "help me" and told Mike the story. We gave her lots of praise and even dusted off the potty treat container and rewarded her for using her words so well. It's going to be interesting from here...