Terrible twos? What terrible twos? Bah! Hogwash! Who says? I think it’s a myth.
Of course, as I write this I’m also knocking on all the wood in the house with a sledgehammer, just to be safe. How many times have I written something like, “Never has the hot water heater exploded, flooding my house and causing it to float down the street” . . . only to have it happen the next day? Too many times. So knock, knock, knock!
But for all the talk of terrible twos, it’s been quite timid at my house since little Amelie celebrated her second birth in December.
Yet, everybody asks about it, and has warned us it was coming. “Oh man, talk about terrible,” we commonly hear. “My kid would scream so much, the paint fell off the walls. I’ve been medicated ever since.”
People told us she would turn wild, like a jackhammer. That she would be mean, loud and angry. That she might pout and make unreasonable demands, like letting her drive the car. People said she wouldn’t listen anymore and would stomp her feet in protest at everything.
They encouraged us to start drinking martinis out of beer steins and invest in ear protection.
But you know, it hasn’t been that bad. Sure, she doesn’t listen as well, and has found her legs. (In fact, what she found is that her legs don’t ever stop.) But I’m high energy, too, and don’t mind a kid who likes to play. Plus, I can be obstinate myself and all-to-frequently stomp my feet. You have to be pretty loud in this house to rise above all the rabble.
If there are problems, most of them could be prevented by me listening to my wife, like when she tells me not to leave the Sharpie out. We end up with a kid who looks like Salvador Dali with his curled mustache.
If there’s anything terrible, it’s her teeth. We’re pretty much down to molars right now — all the others have come in — and these things are like Alaskan glaciers punching through. They must be the size of my fist, and I’m starting to worry they will be so heavy, she’ll have to walk around with a crutch just to rest her poor head on.
We have a vocal child, that’s for sure. She’s not afraid to clean out the pipes, if you know what I mean. Although she never screams or yells just for the sake of it. We get a lot of calls for help, which in her Toddlerese comes out more like, “Hep mae! Hep mae!”
So we run into her room at top speed, terrified of what we will find — “What’s a’ matter? Did you light yourself on fire? Is it wild dogs? Did the stock market drop again? There she is, trying to put a diaper on a doll. “Hep, daddy, pease!”
I can’t tell if she’s becoming bossy, or if she just doesn’t have a good enough grasp of the English language to be more polite. For instance, she’s into yelling from other rooms, “Daddy come!” On the surface, that does sound a little rude, if not so warbled and cute. But is it meant as a demand? Or is just her way of saying, “Excuse me, pa-pa, but if you would be so kind as to join me in the boudoir for a moment, I have a question to ask of you.”
She doesn’t know that many words, so who knows? Maybe that’s what she means.
My kid definitely isn’t terrible. Sure, she gets into things, doesn’t have an off-switch and tells you exactly what she wants. But there’s nothing wrong with that. She’s loving and sweet. Adorable! Like just now, when she was walking to the bathroom to brush her teeth, only to stop and say, “Hel-lo da-deeeee!” I melted. How innocent and pleasant. No, certainly not terrible. Not my two-year-old . . . unless of course I just jinxed it. Only 11 more months to find out.