Amy J. Bennett

Yes, I think Lexi is headed straight into terrible two’s.  She didn’t even give me the extra few months until she actually turns two.  She has become very demanding lately and really even bossy sometimes.  She has learned the word “GO!”.  The other day Scott was sorting through some washers on our dining room table.  She crawled up there and was playing with them and I was telling her not to play with Daddy’s stuff and walked over to her.  She literally started pushing me away (not hard) and kept saying Go…Go!  I didn’t even knew she knew that word yet.  And she has learned to pout.  Like stick out her lip, put her head to her chest type pout.  Tonight she even went and sat on Mom’s fireplace and pouted like that.  I of course ignored it.  But sometimes, I’ve given in.  Sometimes she has crocodile tears and REALLY wants something that Emma or someone has taken from her and she is DETERMINED to have it.  And sometimes giving it back to her is not good enough.  I don’t know.  She is definitely getting one little spunky attitude.

A lot of people say different things like, she’s my “boy” or she’s “alpha-female”.  She is much more active and daring than Emma is and although Emma can be a bossy little thing–more organizer–Lexi kind of just does her own thing.  She tends to play on her own even if there are others around and she’s like in her own little world sometimes.  She is content to play on her own and usually is pretty content and happy except for those aforementioned terrible two moments.  But she is scared of almost nothing.  Even today we went over to a friend’s house that has twins her age.  After I rang their doorbell, she is trying to open the door from the outside and almost falls in when they do open the door.  Then she walks away from me into the house, right past my friend and her daughter’s and head for the toys in the living room.  I was like, uh, make yourself at home, Lexi!  Emma would have wanted me to hold her while we waited at the door, put her head down on my shoulder when they opened the door and then spent 10 minutes sitting very still on my lap.  Then of course she would have felt comfortable, got up and began bossing people around (in that polite, organizing kind of way) and been fine.  Another example of what I mean by Lexi…same playdate today.  We went to the park.  Lexi took a couple spills on the slide and steps and we were trying to go back to the swings.  Well, I tried to put her in one of the swings, but she wanted a different one.  The same on the one of the twins was wanting in. I tried to pick her up and put her in the one I originally wanted her in and she flung her legs (while crying of course) and wouldn’t let me put her in.  I ended up just holding her, giving her her paci and blankie and she got down, sat in her stroller and just sat quietly there while the other two finished up swinging.  She is just determined and I think would just rather not do it than not do it her way.  I don’t know, sometimes she does really good at sharing and gives things to Emma for her to take a turn with and most of the time she’s easy going but when she decides to make a deal, she can do it and will stick to her guns.

I think we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on Emma going #2 in the potty.  I’m not sure if there was really one thing that finally got her going in the right direction.  At her 3 year old appointment he gave us some laxative type stuff that I was supposed to give her because she was stopped up and resulted in very “big poops” (aren’t you glad you’re reading this) that I think hurt her and scared her which made the whole cycle start again.  Well, I never could get the medicine right and all it did was make her have diarrhea in her panties which was even a worse mess than I began with.  I finally gave up except to vehemently complaining every time she did that that she should not be doing that and next time she was to use the potty.  But in the past few months, when I noticed she had to go–which was obvious by the “streaks” she left beforehand (this post is getting even better, right?)–I would tell her she did not get to put panties or a pull-up on until she pooped.  Which I did that specifically because I knew she really wanted one of the two on because she and I both knew she would not poop on our floor.  Well, low and behold, she ran in the potty without me even saying anything and went.  I of course was about to kiss her feet I was so happy and told her how proud I was of her and hugged her and we had a party!  Have you ever partied because of poop?  Probably not unless you’ve been in my shoes before.  Anyway, I’ve done that a few times and I think she got over whatever fear she had of going.  And the funniest of all is when she told me after a single visit to the potty that she had “gone THREE times!”  LOL, I’m smiling thinking about it because just tonight she was running around the house with no clothes on and ran up to me and said she had just gone to the potty TWICE!  And I heard through the grapevine that she pooped yesterday in the potty at MIL’s.  So I think we’re rounding a corner.  It’s only been 4 years of changing her poopy diapers/panties/pull-ups and 2 years of serious potty training, but I think she might just master #2 before she turns 4.  Hallelujah!