The Hard Way

Today I was reminded of the questionable choices my oldest decides to make.  We work hard in our house to always offer choices.  Whether it be between shirts, scheduling options,  yogurt flavours or my husband's favourite " the easy way or the hard way".

Usually this method works fairly well in our house and I like to think prevents a tantrum or two.  I figure that if they buy into the options they are less likely to just say no and by us offering the choices we approve of  in theory, should prove for less arguments.

Apparently these options get a little old for their liking and the threat of the hard way is not great enough...

One day our two were playing outside.  In our yard we have a play set with swings and a slide.  At the time the set was new and it was hard to pry them away from the set when it was time to go inside. 

Our oldest was up on the top of the set pretending to be a pirate and hunt for treasure.  My husband gave her our usual ten minute warning (thankfully, the concept of time is lost on her so ten minutes could be two or twenty).  She accepted the warning and continued to play.

A little while after he informed her that it was time to go inside.  She pushed herself into the farthest corner of her play set and looked down at my husband with a defiant look on her face.  Before he could offer her any choices she looked at him and said "I choose the hard way".

He climbed up the play set grabbed her kicking and screaming and carried her inside under his arm. Today a year later we had a similar episode in which she again chose the hard way.  I am reminded once again how much they have grown and yet that they are still learning.

Hopefully she starts to chose the easy way soon because she is getting heavy.

If Jaws was a Toddler

What do mosquito's, sharks and my children have in common?  They all bite.  Both of my girls were biters.  Thankfully another child at daycare chomped on my oldest nipping that in the bud fairly early on.  We were not so fortunate with the second one.

Her prey has always been her big sister as at a young age she determined that biting was a successful method in retrieving her desired item from her older sister.  The biting issue had started to fade and dissipate the older she has gotten.  They are fairly close in age and size so currently they are fairly evenly matched.  For these reasons I believed our biting issue had ceased until earlier this week.  

My mom was watching our girls and having fun playing with them both.  She had our smaller one perched on her hip while the bigger one was tickling her sister's legs and feet.  Apparently things got a little carried away and the small one sunk her teeth in deep.  My mom instantly dropped her to the ground and yelped out of pain.  She informed the little one that she had hurt her and that biting is not allowed.  

My mom's interior of her arm was black with tiny teeth indentations.  She seemed to understand the message that she had really hurt my mom; perhaps all to well.  

The next day we were still visiting my parents.  Once more my mom was playing with the girls.  My youngest decided that she should have a treat of candy at approximately 8 in the morning.  My mom decided that this probably wasn't the best time for treats and told her "No, not right now".  To this my youngest uttered her first threat,

"I bite you".

Hopefully this is our last incident...

King Can Catastrophe

As I have posted before (Care Bear are the New Black) my youngest is rather hard to dress.  So it was no surprise when we left the house with her wearing a Care Bears shirt for the third day in a row, black capris, and old cracked rubber boots with a questionable fit.

My husband and I had decided to use the divide and conquer method that day.  I took the second one to town to run errands and the oldest one stayed with my husband.  We have a very limited selection of stores in the town closest to us, so I knew at best I would need to make at least three stops.

We started first with a stop at Wal-mart in hopes that I could get as much as possible at this stop; thankfully since it was Wal-mart her fashion choices didn't stand out as really odd.  While travelling through the aisles she decided she needed a snack.  As usual I was unprepared and grabbed a box of peanut butter crackers off of the shelf and busted into them.

Now along with her poor fashion choices she sat in the front of the cart munching on the unpaid for crackers with peanut butter everywhere.  I noticed now for the first time that the black capris she was wearing had two rather large holes in one leg.  She then decided she was all done with sitting in the cart and wanted to move around.  This was definitely the cue to exit the store with whatever items we had obtained thus far.  Like most shopping trips with children along I ended up leaving the store without getting all the required items; we will live without them a few more days.

It was a long weekend and we had plans with friends and a babysitter coming so of course we required adult beverages.  I had my priorities in order and thought we should skip stop two and head straight to stop three, the liquor store.

Upon entry to the liquor store she was already showing signs of being tired but I figured I would be quick as I only needed a case of beer.  We headed back to the area where the beer is kept and then it started.  "Me tired" she stated, then proceeded to lie in the middle of the isle and roll around.  "Feet hurt" she whined and kicked her old cracked rubber boots off revealing broken oozing blisters on her heals.

So there we were, me with 11 king cans in a box on one hip (they were out of cases) and my daughter rolling on the floor in her dirty Care Bear shirt, pants with holes, and bare oozing feet.  I scooped her up onto the other hip, threw her boots in with the king cans and headed to the till to pay.  I tried and walk with confidence but I could feel the other people's eyes in the busy store burning into the back of my head.

I paid and asked the attendant to help carry my purchases to the car.  I figured hey why not by this point.  I got into my car, laughed, and vowed to never enter that store again.

Care Bears are the New Black

Getting my 2 year old dressed each morning is a struggle.  She is already very opinionated about her clothing and shoe choices.  I know this sounds ludicrous.  I mean she is two give her two options and let her pick or better yet just put whatever on her.  However, I have tried both of these methods many times with terrible results.  Typically, this ends with me restraining her to dress her and then she gets mad, cries and gets naked again anyhow.

Recently I have been trying to encourage her independence by allowing her to pick her own clothing and dress herself.  Usually if we are leaving our house I do try hard to have more influence; but, many times I fail even at this.  Countless times she leaves are home looking as though she has been in the wilderness camping for weeks on end.  She loves one particular dress that on many occasions I wash each night to avoid a fight in the morning.  I am sure that her daycare workers probably think she only has three old dirty things as this is all I can seem to get her to put on right now.  I am okay with this. 

She wore her winter boots well into May.  She is very difficult to catch and try and get pants on.  If they are pink then she may stay still long enough to get them on depending on the day.  Sometimes after she is asleep and I go to check on her I find her naked or wearing a princess dress, neither are what she was initially put to sleep in.  Only a select few can comb her hair and I am not one of the select few.

I can't blame her as I too am rather particular.  I have had my fair share of fashion mishaps including ill-filling military pants with baby tees (i.e. trying to emulate Gwen Stefanie in the 90's) and am told when I was about her age I wore my lifejacket for the entire summer, including to town and while trike riding.  No one in my personal life dare buy me an article of clothing unless a gift receipt is included or it has been preapproved by me.  This being said, I believe that may be why I give her a little more room to express herself in this area. 

So although I was thrilled the other day to receive a bag of handed down items all in her size I knew I had to plan my next move cautiously.  I knew I couldn't just place the items into her closet (I have tried this in the past and she does not believe the clothes are hers and thus will not wear them) or god forbid attempt to just put something on her, so I set them aside and  waited until I could come up with a good strategy.

The best idea I could come up with was to turn our spare room into a "shopping center/dress up area" where she could pick out things and pretend she was shopping for all of her new clothes.  That was a week ago and so far we have added two new things to her wardrobe, a Care Bears t-shirt, and a green dress that reminds her of Tinkerbelle.  My spare room now looks like we were ransacked and robbed with things thrown everywhere.

Hopefully by fall she has finished her shopping and thank goodness we don't have a lot of overnight visitors.