The terrible twos. They really are terrible. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they suck. Big time. Not just for me, but for him too. We had something of an epic fail in the past week, one behavioural disaster after another. Some weeks are just like that I guess. It started with a return to toddler group after the summer break. Hammer is big, it’s noisy and it’s busier than a branch of Next on the first day of the sale. It’s full on, always has been. In the past he’s been OK with it, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Last week was not a good week. Then there was a failed trip to the Hen House. Meh, it happens I guess. It’s this ‘pushing’ phase that’s doing my nut. I know it’s his way (whether right or wrong) of expressing himself (“you’re in my space/touching my stuff/touching stuff I deem to be mine because I glanced at it 20 minutes ago and I don’t like it”). It’s not malicious. But other people don’t see that. They just glare and in some cases admonish me for his behaviour. His speech delayed, frustrated, two year old behaviour. Sigh.
So what do I do? Seriously? Much of the advice given by official channels is to ignore bad behaviour (er not always possible, especially in public when it’s involving other children) and getting them to talk through their feelings (hmmm can we park that one for now?), in fact much of the advice just seems to be ‘well yeah, this is going to happen and you gotta ride it out best you can honey, sorry. We’ll talk again when he’s three, OK?’. My initial reaction on Friday was to never take him out again. Ever. Again. We’ll just stay in I thought. He wont meet other children, but that way he can’t push them (his modus operadi) and no one will look at me like I’ve pissed in the punch!
I’m not serious of course. What would that teach him? Nada, nothing, zip! I know that really. Just some days, I feel like I’m walking a tightrope. Blindfold. With my hands tied behind my back. Whilst reciting Chaucer (I really hated Chaucer at A’level). Sometimes I’m just so tired to my bones with all this worry and indecision and feeling just not quite good enough, that the path of least resistance just starts to look mighty appealing.
Yeah, the last week was not a good week.
But then, actually, wasn’t it? Thursday, Friday and Saturday could have been better. Sure. Things could have gone more the way I wanted them to, but ya’ know, no one died. And Sunday’s trip to Alice Holt and Tuesday’s trip to The Hen House, whilst embarked upon with gritted teeth, worked out amazingly well. No pushing, minimal squealing, making friends and laughing like a loon (him not me. Well a bit me 😉 )
Taking turns
Swinging happy
And then there’s the speech. The delay in Oscar’s speech is, I feel, impacting greatly on his behaviour, but guess what? Those pesky little words are starting to emerge. Slowly, and in a really peculiar order, but in the last week my boy suddenly has something of a vocabulary. It’s a mixtures of single words like ‘ready’, ‘water’, ‘more’ and ‘flower’ and then even some short phrases like ‘another one’ and ‘I don’t want to’! Whether they ‘stick’ and he continues to use them regularly is yet to be seen (apologies for my cautious tone, but we’ve been here before. Said bear four times in one day, never said it again) but in a week when everything was dreadful, actually it wasn’t at all. He even has a name for me now! I’m Nuhnuh. Just when you think it couldn’t be worse, it suddenly isn’t. That’s the twos for you.
The terrible, terrifying, wonderful twos.
Oh, I’m sorry you had such a bad week. While I don’t have any advice for you, can I interest you in some words of encouragement? Hang in there and focus on the good times whenever you can (I saw a picture of carrot cake in your feed. Any week involving carrot cake can’t be *all* bad). Ignore the admonishing/judgemental looks of others – they don’t understand what you’re going through and it’s none of their business anyway! My cousin’s son had delayed speech development, but he’s seven now, will talk your ear off and seems just like any other kid his age. You’ll get there!
Thanks Shannon! It can be hard to see the good, when there seems to be so much going wrong, but it really was a week of two halves and no mistake! His speech has been sooooo slow coming, but hopefully we’re on a road towards improvement now and that’s great! Speech delay is so mean though. We rely so heavily on verbal communication, not having it affects so much more than I ever realised. Eye opening that’s for sure! Hope you and Caitriona have a great week xx
Lisa I recognised such a lot in this post and isn’t it great to look back and see how far they have come! Compare this to your last post on your amazing summer. You must be so proud. You are doing an amazing job. thanks so much for linking this fantastic post!
Thank you so much my love. It really is. This was written just before our first paediatrician appt. so much was stressful and so much I didn’t understand. I just want to hug that girl. She tried so hard. ?
But you’re right, it is fab to see how far he has come. He hardly ever pushes people now (he’s doing this thing where you can see he wants to, but instead he hugs himself. You can see the frustration in his little face but he doesn’t lash out!) I’m so proud of how far we’ve all come!
Must be really interesting to look back on posts like this and see how things have changed and progressed. & I think you’re right – ‘bad’ weeks are probably rarely as bad as they seem – there will usually be some positive in there if you look for it. #fbfriday
It really is. It’s one of the reasons I’m so glad I took to blogging!
I was so lucky as we didn’t seem to have a terrible twos phase with BB – not sure if we’ll be so lucky with Little B though! #fbfriday
It was hard I wont lie, but I think it was made harder by the fact that just after I wrote this post we started to look into whether Oscar may be Autistic. I blamed so much just on his age and to be fair, it could have just been that. But it wasn’t. He was diagnosed in Feb of this year and it’s given us access to support and understanding. I knew his speech delay was causing him to be frustrated and that was equalling difficult behaviour, but I understand it more now.
I’m still glad the 2’s are over though 😉