Chasing bubbles

Daisy is now 21 months old and hurtling fast toward her 2nd birthday in April. Although, of course, she's been "two" for some time now. All those timelines are a bunch of crap mostly. I don't know another mother with a kid her age who is not dealing with tantrums, screaming and the continual repetition of that dreaded two letter word: "NO!"

Right now we're at the "out of nowhere frustration" stage. Which means she will go from happy and content and playing to pissed and frustrated and kicking in, well, I don't know... too little of a fragment of time to calculate without some kind of special device. Toys are thrown, toys are kicked, (you are kicked, if you're in the way), and screaming and crocodile tears begin. 

The poor Thomas the Tank Engine playset seems to be taking the brunt of it all. I can't tell you how many times that thing has been torn down and reconstructed since Christmas. As Daisy says after she's calmed down and is viewing the scene of her own destruction: "Pooooooor Thomasss"

What we can't do right now, however, is shop.

In fact, going anywhere where she might want to get out and walk right now results in a lose-lose power struggle. She won't sit in a cart or a stroller for long but she will only walk and hold your hand for a couple of minutes. After which time, Missy will sit on the floor, yanking her arm out of it's socket, in an attempt to get you to let go. If you do, she runs off at lightening speed, usually in the opposite direction than you want to go and always without paying the slightest bit of attention to her surroundings. If you don't let go, she moves onto throwing herself on the floor and whining.

The only good thing about this is that it really does very little for my husband and I, other than make outings twice as exhausting. Fortunately, neither of us cares if passers by think we are *those* parents. Maybe we're just too old to hold onto our pride at this point but we usually let her get on with it (when time allows), watching her with an amused expression. However, we did get a horridly dirty look from a mom in Ikea on New Year's Day, as Daisy skid to a halt and straight into a Poang chair, after escaping from her Daddy.

Of course, it's not so easy when you're on your own. Honestly, I just constrain her to the cart or the stroller if I've got a timeline and deal with the consequences. There seriously is no other way round it.

I make it sound worse than it is. The vast majority of the time she is a happy, funny little girl who certainly provides hours of entertainment for me, her dad, and my parents. What with Daisy time, blogging and taking pictures, I find I hardly ever sit down on a couch and watch TV at night any more. 

Meh, I'll trade reality tv shows for bubble chasing any night.