Yesterday was a great day with my two-year-old. Her language is exploding, as is her understanding and appreciation of how things are “supposed to be”, or in other words, she fights less against every single thing I want her to do.
1) She goes down for her nap and no longer needs to be in the crib. She will lie down (with me, of course) and go to sleep!
2) If I give her a two minute warning, using the timer on my phone, she will switch activities with much less resistance… for example, coming inside when it’s getting dark.
3) We went to the grocery store and on a whim I decided to see if she would walk beside me holding onto the cart. I made sure she understood that she would go back in the cart if she let go. She tested me a few times, but all I had to do was start the countdown “one, two, three…” with a stern voice and she would grab on again. She also like to “push” the cart with me helping to steer (since she can’t see over the top of it).
4) She also helped me fetch items and place them in the cart, like the milk.
5) We got more stares because my two-year-old was so well-behaved, and more smiles, then I ever got when she has had a meltdown at the store. It was a really nice change! More bonus, she got exercise, physically and mentally, doing tasks and walking more.
6) She can now be trusted not to go in roads (she’s very vigilant about this!) or run for the hills whenever someone isn’t holding her. I can actually plant flowers or weed outside without worrying that she’s running off into the sunset. Now she is capable of playing with dirt or rocks or her outside toys. For some, this is never an issue. Before now, I couldn’t leave her side, not in our backyard, not at a playground, because she would make a beeline down the street or across the road or just as far away from where I was as she could get! It is so, so, so nice that she actually stays in the vicinity of the playground now without me dragging her back over, and over, and over.
7) We went all the way to the store and back (1 hour round trip) with her big girl undies on, no accidents! She used the potty in the store, and also right before we left. We were having problems with her peeing in her undies like it’s a pull-up, but if she was bare, she would use the potty. I gotta get her potty trained at school like she is at home somehow, so she can be in the 3-year-old Montessori program.
8) In emergencies, she is capable of doing a real game or activity on her kindle. Her attention span is about half the length of a Disney movie (rather than two minutes of it). She can read books without losing interest midway through, and listen to songs one after the other. I love this attention span development!
9) Now that she is making phrases and sometimes even sentences, I can really understand her ideas! It makes working things out and preventing meltdowns so much easier.
I’m really just enjoying this age. She is a language sponge, and now can count in Spanish to three, and in English to five. She sings lots of songs and asks lots of questions. She’s such a cool, smart, funny little person! It’s such an honor to be her mom.
Mother of All Things 