eating my words...

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said all was going great with the big girl bed? Yeah, I think I jinxed myself. Grace is driving me insane with the getting out of bed every 3.62 minutes and wandering around the house. For the past week, I've gotten nothing done in the evenings because I'm constantly putting her back into bed. Tonight, I put a baby gate in her doorway, but really just as a slight deterrent since I know she can climb them. At least now she can't waltz out of her room without making a noise...at this point tonight, I have caught her three times mid-climb (and mid-grunt) going over the gate...

...make that four. Ugh. I had to have known it was coming...Sam went through the exact same stage. I remember sitting upstairs at the old house a year ago talking with my sister on the phone, when Sam tiptoes down the hallway with myself in plain view. As he reached the end of the hallway before stepping out to be exposed to the stairwell, he whisper-shouts across the living room to me, "Hey Mommy! Where'd Daddy go?" since Kris had just put him back into bed. Seriously! Like I was the one sitting in the getaway car waiting for him to sneak run out of the bank he just held up...like I was the one waiting to whisper-shout back "the coast is clear!" I remember looking at him with my are-you-freakin-kidding-me-with-this-after-I-put-you-into-bed-
for-the-fifteeth-time-and-Daddy-only-came-up-for-the-last-
trip-to-your-room? look on my face, then throwing in the towel that night and laying in his bed because I had no other solutions.

I guess I just thought Grace would never get to this point. Don't ask me why...I have no idea. Maybe because she's always been so self-sufficient while we've been catering to Sam. Since he was only 16 months when she was born, we were always making sure he didn't get upset since we didn't want him to disturb the baby. When Sam hit the getting-out-of-bed stage (amongst other 2-year-old quirks), I started to realize I had created an attention-demanding older kid while creating an infant who really didn't demand much attention at all.

It seems now, the roles have reversed. Now Grace is demanding the attention...she has become that typical two-year-old. The one you see screaming in the store or laying on the floor in a restaurant with snot and tears all over her face, or smacking her mother or father. The one who gets out of bed every 3.62 minutes.

God help us. We just got beyond this with Sam a few months ago. But it does make me wonder if I can stop blaming myself for Sam's "terrible twos". Maybe I didn't create that afterall...maybe your typical two-year-old just goes through this. I'm going to keep telling myself this...makes me feel like maybe I actually am doing things right and my kids were just predestined to hit the terrible twos. Maybe.