It hasn’t been a very cold winter so far, but it’s been a wet, soggy, dreary one. On the days its fairly warm outside, it’s too soggy either from melted snow or too much rain and the air smells like wet dog. Ellie was getting a little antsy and I think I was anxious to get out of the house too. So as a change of scenery, I decided to take Ellie to my local coffee hangout and draw pictures. Instead of drawing pictures over and over huddled around my coffee table, we’d do it around someone else’s.
YEAR TWO: LET’S CELEBRATE!
We made it through another year. Another milestone. Ellie is two years old today. Whoa, I now have a two year old. When I look at her, it just seems like the next step and it’s not a big deal. But when I say it out loud, “two year old,” it sounds momentous. It has so much weight to it. Two year old. That’s major.
THE TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD TWOS
Ellie turns two this weekend and as I’m excited to celebrate, I can’t help but feel the ominous cloud of warnings looming in the background. All the “just wait” phrases that have been prophesied to me, the warnings of tantrums and freak outs, and the most treacherous of all, beware of the “terrible twos.” (insert thunder clap and lightning bolt) I have to say, these foreboding dark predictions are casting a big shadow on the year to come. Every time I respond with, “almost two” after someone asks how old she is, they smile, but all I hear is, “Congrats, your life is gonna suck.”
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THE RETURN OF BRUCE
It’s funny how things happen sometimes. You think you have things under control. You think you’ve thought of every angle and that you are in the clear, or at least on the right path. But then out of nowhere, the unexpected happens. What am I talking about specifically? I spent a good two weeks working on Ellie’s sleep schedule with as much focus as if I was trying to figure out string theory. And just as things were starting to smooth out and go well, someone slapped me awake in the middle of the night and laughed. But who, you ask? None other than, Bruce the Molar King. I hate that guy.
SLEEP TIME CHALLENGE: DAY FIVE, REVENGE
I was cranky and angry. This sleep time challenge was not going as smoothly as the one I did last year. And that was no cake walk either. I was not getting consistent progressive results. I know my methods are not scientific and may not be the best, but it’s what I decided and I was hopeful they would work. I knew my problems wouldn’t be completely fixed in just five days either. I just needed to feel we were moving in the right direction. After Ellie pulled a fast one on me the day before, I was determined to finish the five day challenge on a high note.