Katy has entered that beautiful time of life where she wants to do everything for herself, but can't quite do a lot of those things! I have no problem with her doing the things she can when I have the time to let her do it (which is a lot of the time, one of many benefits of being a full time mommy). It's a good exercise in patience, taking deep breaths and all that.
However, there are two times I just can't let her do things for herself:
- When I need her to hurry for an important reason (usually when I need to take the boys to school or be home from errands before the bus drops them off, or sometimes if I'm cooking dinner or something)
- When she truly doesn't know how
She was not pleased with me for redoing it, and refused to pick her jammies. I tried to help her choose for a little while (I tried giving her two options and I tried letting her pick from the whole drawer), and she refused (she didn't want to get in jammies!). So I chose for her, and put them on for her.
And she SCREAMED for quite some time.
Interestingly, she wanted me to hold and snuggle her while she threw this huge tantrum. So I rocked with her in her room, trying to be comforting and sympathetic. She seemed to calm down a bit (down to normal crying rather than loud hysterical crying). I had the boys get Book of Mormon Stories to read in her room instead of everyone going downstairs. I started reading, and the screaming started again! So finally the boys & I went out to the loft to read, and I held Katy's door closed and told her she could scream all she wanted in her room, but needed to be calm to come out and be with us.
And guess. What. It worked! Within probably 3 or 4 minutes, she finally understood what I had told her about 5 times, and she calmed herself down! She stopped crying, and I opened her door maybe 15 seconds later. She came out and was pleasant for the rest of Scriptures, prayer, and her stories!
It's sad to see my Katy Princess turn half angel/half demon, but after going through this stage of life with two other children, I have a bit more perspective. It really is indicative of a good thing: learning to be independent and learning how to handle strong emotions. I just wish I still thought the terrible twos ended at three. From past experience, three is just as bad & often worse. Deep breaths, deep breaths, we'll all survive.
Oh, and there's an interesting thing that I suspect may be connected. Katy & Ryan have playdates with Natalie & Peter almost every Tuesday since the beginning of the school year. The boys are absolutely adorable, really well matched friends. They're only about two months apart. The girls are about a year apart (Natalie is older), and Katy hadn't really gotten into playing with her yet. She loved having playdates, but just hadn't reached the "play together" developmental level yet. She was still doing the "play alongside" thing. Yesterday was the first time we've played in 3 weeks due to illnesses, and Katy & Natalie played together really well! We were at a park (it was a beautiful day!), and they kept running around together, doing the slide at the same time and stuff like that. Once I even saw them holding hands while they ran. :-)
Now I'm no human development expert, but to me it doesn't appear purely coincidental that Katy developed the "I do it or I throw a tantrum" and the "play together" mindsets at the same time. I'm not sure how those could be connected, but both are fairly noticeable milestones, and both have been reached within the last few weeks.
My baby is growing up. :-)
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1 comments:
You'd both "win" if you got some pull ups for nighttime. She can put them on herself and you won't have to worry about them being on right. The fewer the battles in a day the better for all!
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