The stages of a toddler's personality change so quickly and unexpectedly, it's almost impossible to keep up. One minute Kyle is making up funny voices to make us laugh and blowing us kisses and stroking my hair saying "pretty mommy" and LITERALLY the next moment (no, really, one moment later) he is screeching and clawing and demanding EEPY IDER EEPY IDER and, oh my WORD child, no one on the planet knows what the hell you're asking for, so could you kindly calm down and maybe draw me a picture, point, SOMETHING?
(He wanted me to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, by the way.)
(You won't be shocked to know I wasn't much in the singing mood once we got all that sorted out.)
With all that said, I'm liking Kyle at two quite a lot so far. (One week in!) I can say this with much confidence that something will happen in mere hours to change all that. And then we'll flip-flop again a day after that. Basically, I'm not worried about jinxing things by talking them up because toddlers are smarter than the jinx. Toddlers will kiss you and throw a remote at your head all in the same half hour.
So go ahead and say whatever you want about two. Two doesn't speak the same language anyway.
In all seriousness, I feel like I'm such a better mother to a two year old than to a newborn. I miss how tiny baby Kyle was and how cute all his little clothes were and how everything was ahead of us. Every stage was to come, you know?, but the daily grind of raising Kyle at two vs Kyle at two months is night and day. We sleep so much! And we play so much! And we have conversations and we take him places we know will blow his mind and that in turn blows our minds and we can rationalize with him, for the most part, and we can make each other laugh. The other day I had to run into the store and get pizza dough and I said to him, "Buds, we have to run into the store, grab some pizza dough and run out. You have to hold my hand, okay?" And he said, "yes mommy" and other than an unfortunate incident near the gift card display, he held my hand and walked sweetly beside me and we were in and out in no time and, man, it was grand.
When I look at him these days, it's like I'm looking at the dreams I used to have of motherhood playing out before my eyes.
Of course I have fond memories of Kyle's babyhood. He was so little -- so much smaller than anyone thought he'd be -- and he had this dark, dark hair and these steel blue eyes and when I think of that little guy, I just melt because MY BABY, OH MY BOY, but I'm just so content with now. I want to pause now and memorize every moment of it so I can play it back to myself in years to come. Two, I like you.
Despite the ups and downs of a toddler's mood, it's not just that I like now better but that I'm better at now.