5 Things I Learned About My 2-Year-Old

Last week I chronicled a few crazy things from my older kids and this week I will tell you about the quirkiness of my little one.

1. If he picks his nose and a booger actually comes out, he will scream and then yell, “OW, OW, OW” as though his hand is on fire until I wipe it off.  I must say I like this reaction better than the “ooh, look what I have/let’s see what I can wipe this on” reaction that my other two had.

2. He knows how to chew gum better than my older two.  I discovered this by accident when he was playing with some candy that my kids got at a recent carnival.  He wasn’t trying to eat it, he was just laying it out in a line on our table and then stacking it like blocks.  It was keeping him busy, so I let him keep doing it while I walked the 10 steps to our laundry room to throw a load in the washer.  I came back approx. 30 seconds later to the sound of, “mommy I finished” and the sight of him handing over a large wad of hubba bubba.  WOW.  My other two are just now getting to the point where I will trust them with gum because they always seem to “accidentally” swallow it so I was impressed that he had the foresight to hand it over without a problem.  (I have no idea how he got it unwrapped and chewed in such a short amount of time, but I am convinced that he was just waiting for the moment I walked away to test the gum out – sneaky, sneaky).

3. Trying to take a picture of him right now is virtually impossible, unless he has to poo.  He turned two in October and I have yet to get his 2-year-old pictures.  This actually has nothing to do with the fact that he is the 3rd child.  It really is because HE WON’T SIT STILL to save his life. I don’t want to waste the money or effort trying to get him to smile in the studio when I know he will just try to escape.  I was thinking about having a photographer try to capture a few moments outside because I thought he might be more cooperative that way so I decided to take him to a park/lake area near our house for a test run.  The word to focus on here is RUN.  From the moment we got out of the car, the kid was “Runnin’ ” a la Forrest Gump.  I tried to keep up with him and take a few shots with my own camera (which is not a great one) but he was so fast that I spent most of my time just holding the camera out in front of me and getting shots of the back of his head.  Meanwhile he was doing his best to run into the street, then jump off the bridge into the lake, then climb onto the highest part of the playground and play Superman.  This literally went on for 30 minutes before I thought I was going to have a heart attack from the “exercise”.  Then, he suddenly stopped and turned around to look at me with half a smile.  I got excited because I thought I was wearing him down and I grabbed the camera out to catch him while he was still.  Then I realized that it wasn’t a smile, it was a grunt and a strain face.  Lovely.  *Note to family members still waiting on pictures, unless you want one of him soiling himself on a slide, you’ll probably be waiting a while longer.*

the only time he is still….(are you pooping? emphatically shakes head no while turning bright red)

4.  If he doesn’t know your name, he classify you as either “old” or “young” and likewise, you will be known as either “grandma” or “baby”.  Seriously; every kid is “baby” and every adult, man or woman, is “grandma”.  This has brought about some interesting conversations in public venues.

5. If you show him the hair on the floor after he gets a haircut, he will grab his head in horror and say, “oh no, my hair” as though it was shaved completely off.  To be fair, this week was the first time he has ever sat still long enough to actually get a complete haircut so he really didn’t know what to expect.  I had taken him twice before and both attempts were disasters so we had just let it grow out as long as possible before I tried again.  I finally found a place with a cool seat and toys to distract him so she was able to cut off his extra Justin Bieber hair (AND IT WAS A LOT) without getting rid of the baby softness.  But that also meant that there was enough hair on the floor to make a small wig so he FREAKED OUT until I showed him the mirror, proving that he still had hair.  I had no idea that he would even put two and two together so apparently I need to start giving him more credit for his higher thinking skills.

My kids never cease to amaze me with the way they think, their new skills and the crazy shenanigans they can get into.  I’m sure next week will bring even more “excitement” from all 3!