As most parents, Nate and I are very proud of Zoe. We are proud of her counting and her talking and her many other skills. One thing that we are not really thrilled about her being ahead of the curve on is the "Terrible Twos". They are here and they are real. Zoe is still cute and smiley most of the time, but when she is in a mood, you do not want to cross her.
A couple of days ago, she didn't want to get dressed. Nate undressed her while I was getting ready for work and then she was still naked when I left. Later on I received the text below.
She clearly did not want to put her clothes on and she did NOT want to wear that shirt.
A couple of nights ago we went to dinner at Whataburger. Most of the time when we stop by Whataburger, she gets a grilled cheese, but she had one at home for lunch, so we got her something different. Well, Nate and I both had Buffalo Ranch Chicken Strip Sandwiches. They are delicious, I mean really good. They kept saying they were for a limited time. I hope that is a lie. Well, Zoe wanted some of the bread from our sandwiches. We told her that it was spicy hot and she probably wouldn't like it but she wanted it anyway, of course. So, we gave her some of the bread that had little to no hot sauce as best as we could find. She was fine at first, but then got very sad and kept pointing to her mouth and saying, "hot, hot, hot" and then started full out crying for a good minute. She ate some chicken and then went back to the bread. The same thing happened again, we offered her water but she refused and stuck out her tongue because she thought Nate blowing on it would make it better. It was very sad, very stressful and very funny all at the same time. We had a church family sitting pretty close to us and I kept thinking that they probably thought our child was so crazy and not wonderfully behaved in public.
When we got home she had a diaper rash, so she was justifiably upset. I took her to get the bath started and she touched some of the hot water coming from the faucet, it was not hot enough to burn her but it was enough to scare her into thinking that the water was too hot. So, I tried getting her to play with the water from the side of the tub, making her believe that it wasn't too hot, we poured water on her foot, but she wasn't having it. So out of desperation, I took off my pants and sat on the side of the tub with my feet in the water. Now we are talking, she is in the tub, but won't sit down. She doesn't want to be washed, so I kept squirting her with her little animal toys and making the respective animal noises to distract her. When Nate was done washing her, we got her out. She only wanted to use daddy's towel and for both mommy and daddy to take her to her room to get dressed. She wanted mommy and daddy there the whole time. After that, we sat her down on the couch and turned on Elmo before bed, because we seriously needed some cool down time. Nate and I felt like we had run an emotional marathon.
We knew that these times were coming. Everyone talks about how trying toddlers are. Zoe is still a really good kid for the most part. Toddlerhood is the first step to becoming a teenager, in my mind. She has her super sweet moments, her dictator moments and her meltdown moments. Some of these moments are hilarious to Nate and I, like when she loses it because her socks aren't the right socks. We hide our giggles though because we don't want to anger her further or make her think that her tantrums are correct behavior. We let her be a dictator some of the time and we disagree with her some of the time too. Demanding to have ranch dressing on her chicken is fine, yelling in public to get what you want, is not. Wanting to go to bed with a cup and a book is fine, wanting to play with the tailpipe of the car is not. You quickly learn how to pick your battles with your child, starting when they are toddlers. We love her fiercely and we are doing the best we can. It is hard, but it is still the best.
That's all for now. God is good!
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