Terrible Twos

I love my two-year-old to pieces, but parenting a two-year-old can be rather exhausting. Many things are easier when the child is one or three than when he is two. Two year olds do not like to sit still. Nadia and Ian did a fabulous job in church this morning. I often take this for granted, but several people came up and commented to me at the end of the service about how well behaved they were. If we were still going to our "old" church, Oliver would be expected to sit through part of the worship service. I would have ended up leaving the service as he's just not ready to sit through a service at 25 months old (as of today). Going out to eat and flying on an airplane are much easier with a 12 month old or a three year old because once the child has learned to run around, they just don't like to sit still for very long at all!

We never had much of a problem with Nadia when it came to throwing, but that was definitely something we had to work on with Ian. Oliver throws even more than Ian did. He has more of a temper than either of

his siblings, and that is one way he shows his anger. Neither of his siblings were prone to purposefully dumping glasses of milk or water. This has been an ongoing issue with Oliver. I cannot wait until he learns to stop doing that!!! Ian loved to pull all the books off the bookshelf and dump all the toy bins. Oliver doesn't do that nearly as much. I learned from my mistakes with Ian and have been consistent with making Oliver clean up messes when he starts just dumping things. We also never had problems with the other two opening doors like we do with Oliver. It is a major battle to keep this boy out of the pantry! His mischievousness has definitely made home schooling more challenging this year. Ian sometimes helps out by playing with Oliver while Nadia does her work.

Just like his siblings, Oliver thinks it's hysterical to answer gender questions incorrectly. I'll ask a question such as "Is Daddy a girl or a boy?," and he'll say "Daddy girl" and then laugh his head off. For Nadia and Ian this was the first indication of their sense of humor. Oliver is

definitely "all boy" because the first "jokes" he told were about poop. I kid you not. It's impossible to explain to a 24 month old that poop jokes are not appropriate. Ian never used to talk about such things in a funny manner, but once Oliver started, then Ian followed suit, but Ian is old enough to be taught what is appropriate and so we've been working with Ian on that.

One nice thing about being two is that the child is able to communicate a lot more. I cannot always grant his wish, but at least most of the time I know what he wants, which certainly isn't the case with an infant. His siblings are adjusting to the concept that Oliver now has a say in more things. They used to pick all the books I would read. Now when I am going to sit down and read picture books I ask them each to pick 1-2 books. His favorite books are Little Critter books, Three Little Pigs, The Little Engine that Could, and Bear books. Most days we let the kids watch 20-30 minutes of TV a day, and we used to alternate between Nadia and Ian as to who got to pick what they watched. Recently I started including Oliver in the rotation. He prefers to watch Veggie Tales, Thomas the Train, Mickey Mouse, or Sesame Street whereas Nadia and Ian pick things like Spiderman and his Amazing Friends or Liberty Kids.