Being Two is Hard

Being two must be hard. It was hard on Eli and I when he was two, and it's hard on Noah and I now that he's two. Specifically in the getting out of bed and getting ready arena.

My favorite story about Eli from this phase of his life is one morning he was being completely unreasonable and just wouldn't get dressed. I was getting frustrated and didn't feel like I could wait any more to leave for work, and my patience was wearing thin. I grabbed his clothes and Noah in one arm and Eli's hand in the other and drug/carried a screaming Eli out to the car. He cried the whole way to the sitters (12 minutes) and when we got inside, she sees Eli and says, "Oh, did you have an accident in the car?" as he is only in his underwear at this point.

I just looked at her and said, "No, he refused to get ready this morning." I handed her Noah and said, "Eli are you ready to get dressed now?"

"Yeah," with a wimper. From then on he knew I meant business in the morning. I also decided he must not be getting enough sleep, which was why it was so hard for him to get up in the morning so we moved his bedtime up half an hour and that made all the difference, sometimes it takes me a while to figure things out too!

Now Noah is that same age and a lot of mornings he'll say, "I'm still tired, get Simon ready first." I try to allow enough time that he can take a few minutes to wake up before having to pop out of bed, but at some point he's got to get out of bed and get ready. Keep in mind this child is strong-willed and all about getting to make the decisions for himself, wonder where he gets that?

One day last week I finally got him out of bed and I say to him, "Do you want to unzip your pajamas yourself or do you want me to help you?" He gives me a classic Noah frown, "I don't want to do anything!"

I explain to him I have to get to work and he needs to be dressed, again with the "I don't want to do anything!" He won't let me help him, but he won't do it himself. I told him if he hadn't started getting ready by the time I was done with Simon I was leaving without him.

I now have that option since Tim's work schedule is different (and he's laid off now anyway). I've never had to leave one of the kids, but when I got done with Simon Noah was still standing there in his pajamas frowning saying, "I don't want anything!"

I said, "Well, I don't have time to argue with you about it, I'm leaving for work!" Oh, the crying and gnashing of teeth!

"I'm doing it, I'm doing it!" Except he wasn't, but it looked like he was really going to, honest. I was about to cave and help him get ready and be late for work. Then Tim stepped in and backed me up and said, "Just leave. He needs to learn. I'll take him after he gets ready."

So I stayed strong through his crying and got the other boys out the door. On the way to the daycare Eli says, "I hope Noah doesn't eat all the snacks today." I'm trying to figure out why this would be a concern to him and then I realize he thinks that Noah is going to be staying home all day by himself and all he'll be able to fix for himself to eat is snacks! Oh, the mind of that 4 year old! I told him that Dad would take Noah to the daycare as soon as he got ready. Eli seemed a little disappointed in that, like he thought Noah should have to stay home all day by himself since he was "bad".

I had to explain to Noah's teacher that he would be coming later, as soon as he got ready. I don't think she quite understood our logic, but oh well.

I talked to Tim later to make sure he got Noah there okay and see how it went. He said Noah cried and cried and he made Noah watch us drive out the driveway so he knew we were really gone. Then he made Noah get ready completely by himself (I usually offer help, but Tim is pretty harsh when it comes to things like this) and then he took Noah to the daycare. I asked Tim if they gave him breakfast, and he had no idea.

When I picked the boys up I noticed right away that Noah had his jeans on backwards, but like I said, Tim is tough. So I asked a few more things and discovered that Noah was too late for breakfast at the daycare by the time he got ready and Tim got him there so he didn't have any that day.

Then we had the time change this weekend and that's been a little rough for everyone in the mornings this week. Yesterday Noah started dwaddling and I reminded him that I will leave without him and he'll miss breakfast again, and he said, "I don't want anybody to leave without anybody!" And promptly got dressed.

It's hard to be two, but you can learn so much about cause and effect.