Rearing Its Ugly Head

It's coming.  We can sense it.

It's not far away now, and every once in a while we can see it on the horizon.

Yes, my friends, the Terrible Twos are near at hand.

Nicholas is still by and large an incredibly sweet boy (he sure didn't get that from me!).  He is helpful, obedient, kind, cheerful.  In other words, he'd be ready to join the Boy Scouts if I let him (I apparently stayed just long enough to remember a couple of adjectives from the blood oath).  He likes to do laundry, he likes to help cook. He will listen to logic and reason.  No, seriously, he will.

But sometimes.  Ohhhhhh, sometimes.

Sarah reported having a rough afternoon with him yesterday.  Cranky, tired, disobedient (this sounds more like my son, no?), she had trouble getting him to do anything she wanted.  She couldn't even get books checked out at the library because he kept running away.  Then last night, Nicholas tried to take his diaper off while I was putting his pajamas on.  Repeatedly.  Eventually I got his PJs on, and he was still wearing his diaper, so we called it a success.  Even threats of losing his bedtime books—which he had already picked out that afternoon and had been talking about non-stop—had no effect.  So when he was recalcitrant about brushing his teeth, he had crossed the line.  He got what he wanted—no teeth were brushed—but he also went straight to bed without benefit of reading.

Today he seems cheery again ... though it's about how he was yesterday morning.  We'll see how the day goes.  But each day brings us a little closer to losing our sweet "pre-toddler" and having to deal with a little boy who doesn't know that he still has to follow directions.  And I get a little closer to understand how my parents felt about another little redheaded boy, lo these many years ago.