Terrific Twos

I just don’t understand the hate the Terrible Two’s get. The newborn phase? Exhausting. Threenagers? Daunting. F***ing Fours? The worst. But give me the Terrible Two’s any day. Two-year-olds walk like drunken gnomes, they blabber 50% nonsense and 50% brilliance, and they are the cutest little squishy gremlins. Eat. Them. Up.

I hated the Two’s when Z first started with them. But as soon as she got into her phase of licking random objects/walls/appliances in an attempt to piss me off, I switched gears. (Weren’t reading along way back then? Here you go.) I’ve found this stage nothing but adorable and hilarious since then. Surviving the Terrible Two’s requires seeing the humor in it. Two-year-olds can suddenly do SO many new things and they’re learning so quickly and turning from babies to kids overnight. They can observe so much of the world… but have literally ZERO capacity to emotionally handle it. They are chaotic and funny and emotional and clever and wonderful.

I love that two-year-olds can express almost everything they want to say but still forget words. This week Mina and I searched in vain for 5 minutes for her White Stuffy Bear. I didn’t think we had a white one. She yelled at me. We needed white stuffy bear. But… we don’t have one. He was black. She needed the black stuffy bear. Colors are hard. She looked at me like “duh, what took you so long?” when I finally handed him over.

And the shit two-year-olds say out loud? It’s pure gold. A few weeks ago, mid-diaper change, Mina stood up and tried running away. When I called her back to finish wiping her, she did a twerking motion, squealed “Imma wipe with my shirt and STICK MY BUTT IN A DUCK!” and followed it with shrieking laughter. Zary was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. For 4 straight days at every diaper change the two of them would cackle about butts in ducks.  Where did she come from?!

But Mina has also jumped on the Tantruming Two’s Train this year and like everything else in her life, Mina’s doing it with gusto. Her crying episodes are extremely loud [“I WANT TO YELL! I’M BEING LOUD!”] and so long that she forgets why she’s upset. After a few minutes, we repeat this same conversation:

Mina: “Why am I crying?”

Me: “You were sad! Do you know what happened?”

Mina: {gleefully} “No! I don’t know I’m crying about! Can you dry my eyes?”

It’s the BEST. Sometimes she’ll even top it off with a super cute “I feel better!” Then we move on like nothing happened.

I need to stop typing because Mina’s waking up right now, and she’s already pissed because one of her socks is “wrong to the side” [it’s inside out. She did this to herself.] and she’s bound to wake up Zary at any minute with her hollering. Thankfully Z has moved on to the Fantastic Fives, and like me, thinks everything her little sis does is stinking adorable. Wish me luck today, though. Mina lost Elsa somewhere in the couch yesterday and we still haven’t found her, so I know we’re going to have plenty to cry about (and then forget about)!