Sunday, February 12, 2012

Maggie the Terrible

The Burgess Bunch would like to welcome THE TERRIBLE TWO's into our home for what we hope will be the third and final time! The halls of our home are now filled with the unrelenting scream-wallow on the floor-throw things-tantrum- that make her stop breathing-- that only an almost-2 year old can do. And I hate it. Hate. It.

Maggie is a sweetie pie with reddish brown Shirley Temple locks, and blue-green eyes that simultaneously spit charm and fire. As the only girl, granddaughter & niece, you can only imagine how spoiled she is. It only takes two blinks from those long lashes and everyone around her gives her exactly what she wants. Will, of course, is the worst among us. Whatever Mags wants, she gets. Pacification of her squeals and demands is Will's number one mission in life. And she has learned very quickly what it takes to get everyone around her to do her bidding.

And honestly, I thought Will was bad at 2, and in being honest, he is still difficult, but Maggie the Terrible is possibly worse because she doesn't just act bad, she talks bad. By that I mean, her vocabulary far exceeds her age and she uses her words to slice you in half, scream high pitched darts at you, and when all else fails and she doesn't get her way, you are mean. At least 30 times a day I hear, "Mommy's mean," "Daddy's mean," "Will's mean." At first it was cute but it got old really fast.

As if hearing her tattle on everyone in the house constantly wasn't bad enough, she is starting to write on herself, write on other things, climb on cabinets, and do things that would make Will proud. Ugh. He is probably instructing her to do all of this stuff behind my back. That sounds like something out of the Will Play Book, doesn't it? He is probably getting lots of satisfaction seeing Maggie carry on in his footsteps. And I am not really sure I can handle an entire year of sassy back-talk AND mischievous behavior from ANOTHER child. Seriously.

So tonight, in the midst of one of her "testing moments," I parked her hiney in Time Out for 2 minutes. I have tried Time Out with Will at least a billion times in 2 years and it fails miserably because he would rather eat nails than give me the satisfaction of sitting there and reforming his attitude. But to my shock, not only did Maggie sit in Time Out for the entire 2 minutes, sobbing her eyes out with remorse, but she also got up at the end of her 2 minutes, apologized and hugged me. Hallelujah! Maybe all that practice with Will was paying off. Or maybe, despite her new new found Terribleness, she isn't nearly as Terrible at Two as her brother. One can hope, right?

I love my children at all ages but there are stages that I just really can't stand. Terrible Two's is one of them. I am not rushing her to grow up. After all, she doesn't even turn 2 until April 3rd. But, if she wants to move past this awful, terrible stage faster than slow, that would be alright with me. In the mean time, I am doing my best to just be mean.

No comments:

Post a Comment