Two-nagers!

                                            OMG She's 2!

Pickle turned 2 a couple of days ago. For the past 6 months I've been waiting for and carefully observing the signs of two-nager hood to grace our house, in other words, the arrival of an evil spirit who inhabits my child for the next few years. For around 9 months there have been daily tantrums for no discernible reason, regular refusal to eat or drink, even the food that she loves the most more than anything in the world, spitting EVERYTHING out the moment it goes into her mouth or eliminating the middle man and just chucking it onto the floor, (let's be honest, 80% of the food ends up on mostly chewed on her person or on the floor. It's a miracle these little people survive or grow at all) violent distaste for nappy changes, an undisguised abhorrence of anything involving clothes that aren't already on her, but this morning was a whoooooole new level. The term two-nager works so well on so many levels. It started the night before, the night of her 2nd birthday. To be clear, she DID NOT drink 8 pints of beer followed by some jager bomb chasers. Just in case you were having some doubts.

After "going" to bed, she stayed up for two hours, hurling things and poor unsuspecting animals around her cot and shouting at us from her room behind her closed door. To give her credit, we sometimes shouted back for entertainment value. She shouted about Doggies. She shouted about Druggies. Or was that Daddies? She shouted twinkle twinkle little star at us at the top of her lungs. Not quite as relaxing as it is when I sing her to sleep with it. She shouted the names of all her animals. She shouted about her toy baby and what it was supposed to be doing. Sleeping. Fat chance of that with all the shouting, my darling.

This went on until 9:30, when, exhausted, she slumped in a heap and slept soundly until about 8 the next morning. I had to go in and wake her up to take her to nursery. When I walked in she groaned and opened one eye, which I swear she rolled with exasperation, before flopping back down and pulling the covers over her head. When I finally got her out of the cot, she told me all the things she wanted and expected immediately. The conversation went like this. "Cuddle! MILK! Milk dirty. NO milk. MILK!!!!! Daddy. No daddy! Blanket. BOOK! No book! Mummy do it! Read it. Get it!" I rushed around like an intern at a modelling agency on their first day, bowing and scraping and trying to accommodate her every need...no of course I didn't. I sat and stared blearily at her trying to figure out how I was going to change her nappy and when I could realistically have my first cup of coffee. That's not true. I can't keep two thoughts in my head simultaneously. I was thinking about coffee.

Nappy changing has been a thing to dread and fear and put off if at all possible for many months, ever since she was tiny she has displayed her lack of passion for the great nappy change. But today was a full on rebel forces protest. The military came out and stormed the city. I expect mums that have been through 2 year old children and come out the other side are sitting there laughing at this thinking "just you wait. this is NOTHING sister!" but man oh man. There was no way in hell that nappy was going on. "You beastly woman! You Jezebel! How dare you attack me! Stay back you monstrous devil's spawn! How COULD you do this to me??? I'd rather die, you hear me?!?!?!" was what I heard. After about half an hour and a lot of bare bottomed cuddles intertwined with heart rending sob storms and story readings, I finally was able to slip it on without her noticing....???? The leggings was another half hour full body length floor strop, and the dress even worse. I had to actually grab her and restrain her to wrestle the socks onto those gorgeous little feet. When she was very tiny, I said to one of my mum friends that dressing our babies was like trying to dress an octopus. Today it was like trying to dress a very strong, very willful, very loud, very very pissed off octopus. With 8 hammers.

                                                      

The problem with all this, other than the fact that I feel I've done an 8 hour day with her in the first 30 seconds of the morning, is that it's so funny that I can't help laughing my head off although I try and keep this to myself at the time. Another mum friend said that when her daughter kicks off it's like watching an old film of an Italian widow in the rain. It could not be more apt. It's so dramatic that it's laughable. 

We finally got downstairs, and Pickle saw daddy, who asked for a cuddle. Inevitably, meltdown town all over again. "No, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"  Daddy, very wisely I thought, smiled wryly, muttered "2 year olds" and slipped quickly away into his office, closing the door behind him.

I expect that this will be the new normal. Fire fighting with her through every thing or most things every day for a few years, and finding ways to reassure her that through it all, whatever she says or does, we still love her to the moon and back. 

                                                        

Thanks for reading x