The Joys of Having a Two Year-Old...

Drew has been acting like a two year old lately.  Sometimes it's a joy and often times it's exhausting!  Today, at the same time, the exhausting part turned in to a joy.  You see, he has such a vivid imagination and has been pretend playing a lot.  He'll pick up a bag and fill it with books, toys, etc and announce to me that he's going to school.  I'll kiss him goodbye and tell him to obey his teacher and off he goes pretending he's at school.  He also pretends he's a firefighter (his current obsession is any thing fire truck).  The other day he put on a toy hard hat as his helmet and wanted his firefighters jacket.  So we went in his room and got out a zip up sweatshirt and he wore it all morning "fighting fires" that popped up around the house with his imaginary fire hose.  It is so fun to watch!

The other side of being two is the meltdown that can occur at any minute over the simplest little thing and can often last for up to an hour.  Today it happened as I finished changing his diaper.  We are working up to potty training and I have been encouraging him to be a big boy and pull up his own pants.  I usually have to help him a little (with a chunky behind and diaper, the shorts tend to get stuck on his bottom!)  Well today he had a meltdown at the suggestion, "I can't!  I can't!  You do it for me!" and the crying lasted about 20 minutes.  I wasn't going to back down!  I wanted him to learn that he has to try (we talked about that) and that Mommy can't always do everything for him.  So after about 20 minutes of crying, it dawned on me!

Me: "Drew, let's pretend you are at school and I am your teacher!"

Drew: "Okay!"  (Big smile!)

Me: "I think we should learn about pulling up our pants today!  You can't go to school with your pants down!  Do you think you can do it?  I can help you but you have to try!"

Drew: "Okay, I'm ready!"

And with a little help from me, he pulled up his own pants!  See, with Drew, often he needs to be "ready" to obey or to try something new. 

Becky