It's not a bird, it's not a plane, it's Terrible Two Boy

We've heard this from plenty of folks (and regrettably experienced it first hand) that the Terrible Two's actually start around 18 months. Andrei was a bit late in getting into those episodes where his new found independence (or semi-independence) leads to some pretty trying behaviors. But he's in it full swing right now and let me tell you they are trying times.

He's actually so easy going and well behaved and even after a situation in which he really pushes our buttons, I feel almost like, "Well, that's good though, he's growing and trying to be his own person."

Of course I feel that may most often after a Corona or two.

But the testing rules is the one that just annoys the heck out of me. Case in point is tonight (about 30 min. ago to be exact). Mom did a diaper change and while she was cleaning up, Andrei and I were waiting for her. He finds the most unusual things interesting as toys and often I'm fine with him playing with them. The thing tonight was my drafting ruler (you know the ones that are triangular shaped).

So he's holding it through the railings (we're upstairs at the time) and then looks over to me. I say "Don't drop that down there, you know you're not allowed to put things through the railings and drop them."

That was all the encouragement he needed, and down goes my ruler making interesting sounds as it bounces several times on the tile floor below.

That lead to an immediate Time Out. Normally we don't use Time Outs ("TO") as the first level of discipline (unless he hits, hitting is an instant Time Out in our house). It is just so irritating when he intentionally disobeys a rule (usually after rehearing the rule). And thankfully the TO did it's work because he was pretty sad that he had to stand against the wall for a full minute. They say to use 1 minute per year of age, but Andrei really gets the message pretty quickly so ours are usually between 1-2 minutes.

Anyway, the really nice part of our Time Out method is that after a short discussion on why he got the Time Out we both say "I love you" and kiss and hug. And Andrei has such a sweet demeanor, that he really means it and feels great after a TO and doesn't really have any sense of holding a grudge. I just wish he had a little bit better memory of these TOs so that he'd at least not try breaking the same rule over and over and over again.

And the "We don't drop things over the railing" is his favorite rule to break.