Terrible Twos

Erbie is two and has been since the end of August, lately he has been showing signs of the ‘terrible’ frequently bandied about with ‘twos’– terrible that is by Erbie standards. I believe it is all to do with him finding his own identity. My little bundle who once wore whatever I put him in and did whatever was asked of him is suddenly saying ‘no’ and having tantrums (of sorts). He is no longer a mere extension of me but his own little person, it is both exciting and trying at the same time. Whereas before when we were going out I’d stick his coat on, ram him into some shoes, stick him on my hip and we’d be out of the door, now I need to cajoule and barter. I read somewhere that it is not worth picking a fight with a two year old unless it involves their safety and have found this to be the easiest option. I still haven’t acquired the parental deafness to crying that I guess only comes when you have more than one.

I’ve found that offering a choice of (only two) items can help but once he has chosen I try to make him stick to his choice, that way we both feel in control, stripy socks or the penguin ones, that sort of thing. He will only wear his brown cord cap but at least he does wear a hat (he still has very little hair to talk of).

The other morning after refusing to put on shoes, he kicked out at the little row of them by the doorway and sobbed:

‘I smash my shoes, I sorry mummy.’

Once we are out, there are the shops to contend with. Having department stores as a sort of playground when we lived in W1 has, I think, helped him appreciate that lots of things don’t belong to us and therefore need to stay where they are. This works most of the time...

On Sunday the weather was miserable and Erbie was tired but as we hadn’t been out of the house for what seemed like days we took a walk to the nearby Farmer’s Market. On our way back we dropped into the local Garden centre for a nose around - lots of pots of pansies and primulas. There is also have a large shop that sells a wide selection of goods, I now know why half the local community walk around in Hunter wellies. They also sell some child friendly items among which was a a set of zoo animals in a bucket with a yellow safari jeep. Erbie decided he needed to have aforementioned safari jeep and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I left The GR queueing to buy a primula and took Erbie protesting: ‘I want it, I want it, okay, okay, lets go back, lets go back’, outside, this continued on and off for two thirds of the way home whereupon he fell fast asleep. He woke up 3 hours later happy as Larry.

His language is also coming on in leaps and bounds to the extreme that we really need to watch what we say in front of him or he will want it. The GR and I have started spelling stuff to one another, this only works if the person being spelt to doesn’t then trumphantly blurt out the word, this sadly has happened.

Recently Erbie and I were looking through a copy of the CBeebies magazine (I won’t buy it again, it’s the same price as a Vogue for God’s sake) and I was asking Erbie the names of things when suddenly he replied:

‘It’s cunt I think mummy, yes that’s right.’

I managed to calmly correct him but as I was saying we need to watch what we say.