Ah, toddlers…
Can’t live with them; can’t live without them screaming in your face because you “blinked your eyes wrong” or “moved their carrot” or said, “I love you”.
We’re deep into toddler tantrum territory around our house which is why I am taking refuge in extreme denial.
8 reasons why I’ve decided the ‘Terrible Twos’ don’t exist
1. It’s self-preservation.
If I think too much about the 354 more days of this, I get a bit freaked out.
2. I suspect that things like ‘good babies’ and ‘good sleepers’ and ‘terrible twos’ are self-fulfilling prophecies
If you think it, it will be so. It’s all about reframing.
3. Focusing on the ‘terribles’ ignores the ‘terrifics’
Toddlers are crazy, that is not up for debate here. And yes, they are capable of making us crazy too with their constant refrain of ‘No, no, no, NOOOO!’ increasing in volume with every passing second and their Machiavellian ruling of the household and their resistance to getting dressed/ having their nappy changed/ going to bed/ staying in bed/ getting out of bed in the morning. *Draw breath* Oh they’re good at getting our blood up. But they are also the most impish adorable loving little sprites in the world. *Sigh*
4. I’m trying to stay on the same team as The Child
It’s hard and I definitely am not a patient person (see 10 of my worst responses to tantrums that prove I’m a bigger baby than he is). When he’s shouting simply because I’m doing something as innocuous as holding his jacket out to him it’s easy to see him as the enemy. My attempt to reframe this is imagining The Toddler as the soldier in my battalion who is cracking under the strain, you know the one in the movies who loses it and can’t go on. Only we are not in a battalion together, but a family and the strain he is under is thankfully not warfare but all his gigantic feels. Maybe this analogy is a little odd but whatevs, it helps.
5. Every age has its challenges
I’m years old and still can’t control my wild emotions. Including uncontrollable vanity and unwillingness to admit my age. Pathetic.
6. His perspective on the world is dramatically different to mine
I constantly need to remind myself that he doesn’t know anything about accountability, impulse control or just how goddamn difficult it’s going to be to get the smell of bad milk out of the couch where he’s just flung his cup.
7. The phrase “This too will pass” is true and when it does I’ll be sad
One day he won’t throw tantrums and sure that will be nice too, but when that happens he also won’t think my dolphin impression is AMAZING or that my robot ballerina dance is hilarious, and that will be really sad.
8. The phrase ‘terrible twos’ was coined in the fifties
A lot of good things came out of the fifties, cute prom dresses, the polio vaccine and television but so did the hydrogen bomb and I’m inclined to put the reductionist ‘terrible twos’ phrase in the same category (though obviously not on the same scale) as the hydrogen bomb under the heading Not Helpful for Humanity.
Disclaimer: I wrote this piece after a *whisper it* full nights sleep. I know, hard to believe, but it does happen. And therefore I may be in a slightly more magnanimous state of mind than usual. So I would like to state here that I still reserve the right to bad mouth my toddler son in the future.
