Tuesday, January 5, 2010

only seven months to go

the terrible twos have so far been a mythological beast for us. odd sightings of things that MIGHT be caused by that particular syndrome, but nothing really concrete.

until this morning.

it started at 1:30 am with a red-faced sweaty child calling for 'ning and ning' (because there are two?), ending up in our bed roaring because i said (as has been the case for a while), ning during the daytime but at night mum has to sleep. given a choice of continuing to roar and going back to her own bed, or staying with us and lying down and being quiet, she chose the latter - reluctantly, sleeping (if one can call it that) frenetically with legs and arms flailing at random intervals. at 6:30 when kt came upstairs to ready herself for work, amelia launched herself of the end of the bed in a huge leap, calling katie katie . . . and it was all on. a quick toilet stop, with her bellowing for her father because an attempt at using loo paper correctly had ended badly. a bath and large scrub down followed. shortly after that it was all about daddy feeding her porridge bowing (blowing) on it first, then on with the bike helmet and qantas backpack to the horse waiting outside (wooden, rocking) to go to work, blowing kisses as she rocked madly. in when it rained to draw and cut with the scissors. followed by a few chasing sessions where she bolted with the scissors and the 'only when you are sitting at the table' rule was re and reinforced. she successfully negotiated with me to be allowed to sit at the coffee table on her ikea stool, and as i turned my back to walk to the sink, i heard her say 'i just cut my hair, ok?' and turned to see little golden fibres drifting from the hand stretched up behind her back. cue salutory lesson for all concerned. back to 'only when you are at the kitchen table, sitting' with the addition of 'and at least one fully focused parent present and fully awake' and 'ONLY HAIRDRESSERS CUT YOUR HAIR, NOT YOU!!!!'.

not long after that we were at the table having morning tea and drawing, when i again turned my back (this time to pick up my cup of tea and bring it to the table once i had placed the milk in the cup), when i heard her say happily 'just like the man, just like the man'. i didn't respond so quickly this time, so put the milk away in the fridge before i investigated - finding her wrists and forearms covered in what i assume to be imitation tattoos, given the prevalence of these at the folk festival we just attended . . . lesson number TWO.

after some emptying out of the plastics cupboard and trying out of all the zips on the cooler bags held therein (in preparation for daycare tomorrow - WOOOOOT WOOOOT), she became grizzly, and asked to go to 'mummy's bed' - i agreed, and said i would be there for ning once i had finished the dishes. i checked her every minute or so, seeing her rolling around the bed tiredly, and thought she may fall asleep without me. last time i checked, she was sitting up in bed with a bright red mouth, gazing adoringly at herself in the mirror. apparently it was dad's lipstick, as she found it in a bag she assumed was his. she was wrong however. another trip to the bathroom and the 3rd lesson well under my belt.

the final scene was amelia lying on the bed in starfish postion, with her head in a small toybox that i had just emptied out, looking for all the world like someone out of one flew over the cuckoos nest. fortunately, bY 11am, she was asleep, so i could retire to the kitchen and have a lifesaving cup of tea . . . .

photos will follow, and a video if it is not too large for the blog to take.

2 comments:

  1. Oh yes please! That makes me feel MUCH better about the little ginger I'm living wiht at the moment. MUCH! :-)

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  2. Also, if it makes you feel better, I've observed that for the current generation, the terrible twos actually seems to hit at about 4. Mind you, my kid seems to have hit the terrible twos at one, so go figure on that.

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