Gone “Toddler”

My kid has gone all “toddler” on me. I am SO not prepared.

• We went for a walk today. Stinkerbelle insisted on wearing her sunglasses, which she loves and makes her look like a rock star. However, she also likes to touch them and move them and take them off every 5 seconds, which then results in entreaties for “more, more, more” which grow louder and more desperately insistent if you don’t deal with her RIGHT. THIS. SECOND. And you do not want to know of Teh Drama which ensues if you tell her they are all gone.

• That Baby is wearing her sunglasses. All day. Indoors. And refuses to take them off.

• Her language skills have disappeared. Words we have been using and she has been saying all this time — most annoyingly, “all done” and “night night” and “mama”, which are in high rotation around here — have vanished. All replaced by “bye bye”. Also? It is confusing when That Baby walks up TO you and grabs your leg and says “bye bye”. But don’t worry — if it’s not “bye bye” that makes you nutty, then you’ll be haunted by the hollering of “MORE MORE MORE!” in your dreams. NO toddler would EVER give up saying “MORE”.

• She’s fascinated with her hair, or possibly, that she’s GOT hair. This means that I get her hair done in the morning, and she spends the day sticking her fingers in and ripping it out of whatever elastics or clips or holders the style requires. By the end of the day, she resembles Albert Einstein. If she is contained in her crib for any period of time with a hairstyle in, little clumps of hair can be found littering the blankets.

• Naps seem to be going the way of the dodo. Of this I am despairing, but if she’s ready to give up naps some days, then I guess I have to adapt. It’s just so hard. I LIKED having a reliable schedule. I could PLAN. No more. Now, if she is tired, she will nap and nap well. If she is not so tired, she will snooze and wake unhappily after only a short time or, more annoyingly, when you try to put her in her bed. And if she just needs a rest, she might consent to lie down and play quietly in her bed for the duration. But you never know from one day to the next what you will get.

• That Baby, never the speediest of kids when it comes to getting something done or going from point A to point B, has now become a dawdler of EPIC proportions. Walking down the stairs, she must stop and get lost in thought on EVERY STAIR. Asking her to get something or come to you or whatever requires shouting her name 15 times and THEN she moves into action — for a moment, until she gets to thinking about something else. And the ultimate in dawdling, going for a walk, means that every 3 steps she must stop and look at something, or stop and stomp on a manhole cover, or stop and watch her shadow… which is all fine, I suppose, if you have nothing else to do or you don’t have to pee or whatever. Today? It must have taken half an hour to go about a quarter or a kilometre. She stopped at every mark on the sidewalk, every leaf, every splotch of damp. It was endless. And how did I know we were done? She turned and walked over and grabbed my leg and said “bye bye”.

It could be worse. She’s thrown exactly one tantrum so far, and she lost interest after about 10 seconds. And this is the one part of toddlerhood I WAS getting prepared for.

It figures. She probably anticipated that, and is trying to keep me off balance. These toddlers, they are TRICKY. It’s all part of their fiendish plot to rule the world by keeping the adults confused.