One-year-olds are so sweet and angelic. Just a few weeks ago, back in the good old days when he was one, Darby always said please and thank you, always went down easily for a nap, and just wanted to do whatever he could to please his mommy and daddy. The most challenging things about him were that he wanted to be read to all day long, and he had a habit of smearing food and paint through his hair. I wax nostalgic because ...
Two-year-olds are nap-refusing, boundary-pushing, fire-breathing MONSTERS. I exaggerate, of course. He is still super sweet. But let me tell you some of the things Darby has started doing since he turned two. He has started pushing a chair up to the counter to get access to whatever he wants. What he wants, usually, is sugar. I used to keep my canister of sugar near the stove and microwave, very handy for all the cups of tea I need to sweeten. Then I dared to turn my back on Darby, and he used the opportunity to push a chair up, get the lid off, and start helping himself to fistfuls of sugar--as well as spilling it all over the floor. For some reason, it took this happening twice to realize that I needed to move the sugar to the top of the refrigerator. And supervise my toddler better. If Darby's playing in the kitchen while I'm cooking, and Casey calls to me from the basement, I can't leave Darby alone in the kitchen for 30 seconds because he might push a chair up to the stove and start conducting experiments with boiling water. (He hasn't done that--just considering the worst-case scenarios.) It's made life a little more difficult.
Darby is a short little guy--officially 2 feet 9 3/4 inches, according to his doctor's appointment yesterday--but he doesn't let that stand in his way. In addition to using chairs and stools to get what he wants, he's an excellent climber. In our downstairs family room, we have a wooden ledge halfway up the wall. Darby has decided it's fun to climb up on that ledge and jump off onto a pile of cushions--next to the coffee table. Whoa, bad idea, dude! When I don't let him do what he wants, he gets really mad at me--kicking, thrashing, screaming mad sometimes. Now, when it comes to my kids, I'm probably a little bit of a softie. But let's recap what Darby wants: to eat pure sugar, and to leap off a 4-foot shelf. I'm not the one being unreasonable here.
The little climber has also decided that he doesn't need to sleep anymore, like, ever. He's been climbing out of the crib, so we finally gave in and converted it to a toddler bed, which basically meant removing one side of the crib. We knew that meant he probably wouldn't stay in bed, so we put the gate up on the door to keep him in his room, figuring probably he'd just eventually pass out somewhere. Now, let me tell you about this gate. This is not the same gate we used for Casey when he was 2. This is the taller gate we bought after Casey started escaping the first gate. So this is the serious gate that we previously thought was an impenetrable barrier. Three-year-old Casey couldn't get over it. It took Darby, who can barely see over it, ONE DAY to escape.
So ... he didn't nap Sunday. He stayed up late Sunday night. Woke me up several times during the night and got up for the day at 6 a.m. Then he didn't nap Monday despite seeming ridiculously tired and finally fell passed out at 6 p.m. in a chair after a totally pathetic meltdown. Today, we struggled once again at naptime. He escaped several times and came to visit me, only to be returned against his will. After about an hour of this, I discovered him coloring in the kitchen and told him he had to go back to bed. "No, still coloring!" he insisted pretty sweetly, and I was tempted to let him go. But he's too young to give up his nap! I'd seen overtired Darby too recently, and it's not pretty. Back to bed he went. And now, he is finally sleeping. Too bad we have to pick up Casey from school in 20 minutes.
P.S. There are lots of good things to say about Darby. I owe the little guy a counterpoint entry sometime soon.
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