The New Two

Teadora is a lovely, spirited little thing. Is spirited the right word for it?

While running with her yesterday, she dropped everything she could reach—bottle, toys, pacifier—out of the stroller. Then she decided that she didn’t want to be strapped in anymore, so she wriggled her way out of the belt and tried to stand up. After buckling her back in, she tried to do it 2 more times. Screaming and crying persisted the whole last mile.

That run was not my best.

Looks innocent, doesn't she?

At Ross this morning while I was trying on some shirts, she tore open my purse and managed to lose the lid of my lipstick somewhere when I wasn’t looking. And because we couldn’t find it, she pitched a fit, threw herself on the floor, and screamed for me to pick her up.

Then at the grocery store a little later, she grabbed a sweet pepper, bit the stem but didn’t like when I tried to fish it out of her mouth, so she threw the whole thing to the ground with enough force that the skin bruised and broke. In the next aisle, she picked up a can of enchilada sauce in our cart and dropped it directly on my bare, sandaled foot.

When we got home, she walked right out the front door, toddled down to the corner, and planted herself in the middle of the sidewalk. She started yelling gibberish at the other houses and the trees and the grass. When I tried to get her to come back to the house, she screamed and flopped like a noodle. She just wanted to stay right there. Sitting. Holding a rock. Yelling at things. Putting random things from the sidewalk in her mouth.

“No, no,” is the word of the day.

And this isn’t even half the stuff I stopped her from doing in the last 6 hours.

You guys, I don’t have a baby anymore. I have a fully cantankerous toddler. She knows what she wants and how she wants it. Fourteen months must be the new terrible two.

Pray for us.