Adventures with the Two Year Old

@#Q$%&!!!!!

Omigod.

Oh. My. God!! It's been an exhausting morning with the two year old. Hold on a minute while I make myself a drink for lunch ...


Ohhhhh, that helps.

Okay.

This morning, while I was trying to clean up the kitchen from breakfast, the two year old was happily playing in the next room. Watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, playing with her toys, happy happy happy. So I sat down at the computer to do a couple things, and she oh so sweetly brings me her diaper. Her, um, soiled diaper. That she is no longer wearing.

"Here mommy, it's poopy. It's a-sgusting."

Um, gross. Then I look at her. She has big blotches of red shiny something all over her face. And her cute white sweater. And streaked in her hair. I do a double take to make sure it isn't, well, you know. She had somehow, somewhere, found an old tube of lipstick (where?!? I don't wear lipstick anymore!) and rubbed it everywhere.

"I drew on the wall. And the window mommy!" she says in her most proud voice.


Lipstick. Thankfully.


After ten minutes and several diaper wipes to try and clean her up, I decide it might just be time to shower. So we both climb in the shower.

This is not a relaxing way to shower, when the two year old is with you.

Finally, we are all clean, life smells good again, it's time to get dressed. She has decided she needs to wear her dress-up clothes, and she, of course, can do it herself. Here is what she decided to wear:

note the wink

Look closely at her outfit (and all the dress-ups on the floor that she had to rip out of the closet to find just the right attire). She is wearing four skirts: the blue one you see, then bunched around her waist she has a yellow one, a pink one and another pink tulle one. For her top she is wearing the sole remaining bib in the house from her baby days. She has also pulled out all of her purses and is putting one toy in each one, until she finds the right purse to match her outfit.

I manage to get some underwear on her, then she goes about her play, moving back out to the living room. I take a few minutes to pick up her room, then head out to check on her. She has now taken the cushion that sits on the mantel and thrown it on the floor. She is attempting to use the fireplace broom and dustpan to clean.

What is she cleaning you may ask? A big mess of liquid. At first glance, it appears to be a spilled glass of water. But there is no glass.

Potty training sucks.

*Sigh* Back to the bathroom to clean her up - with perhaps not quite as much motherly love and understanding as there should have been - and get her dressed. In a pull-up.

At this point it's nap time. But I've been waiting all morning for Kinko's to call because I need to get the invitations for my sister-in-law shipped today. Of course, this is when they call (as if there would have been a better time?) and we have to get over there before I put her down.

Taking a two year old anywhere sucks. Asking her to have patience, well that's just not an option. Asking mom to have patience while the two year old screams because she wants all the candy that kinko's has displayed at her eye level, while mom is trying to correct the printing mistakes and waiting the corrections out ... that's not an easy task. My quick errand turned into an hour of waiting around, trying to keep the tired kid from screaming.

While we're waiting, I try to pull up youtube on my phone to entertain her. She wants to watch Mickey, but the video won't download. So I open up the toddler flashcard app and let her sit down and flip through them. She dropped the phone a couple times and got frustrated.

Apparently, around our house, we say goddammit when we get frustrated.

I pick up the phone, get the flashcard app back, and a picture of chocolate comes up next. Of course, the tired two year old decides she needs chocolate.

Now.

Goddammit.

And that was a twenty minute battle (which did not result in chocolate for the two year old, thank you). Finally, we wrap up at Kinko's and head home for a nap.

Thank goodness for nap time. And Stoli.