Two Too Naughty!

I had heard rumors that such creatures existed, but after successfully escaping this phase twice, I was sure that other moms were just exaggerating.

I was WRONG!

The terrible twos have successfully arrived at the Johnson home.

Alyssa was sassy and argumentative and Alex was a living TORNADO. It is not that they were easy, but they certainly weren't Chloe. I did not see this kid coming. She was my peacemaker. My angel. She totally caught me by surprise attack.

Chloe is so independent. All I hear all day is "CHLOE DO IT....I DO IT". I find a kitchen chair all over the house that she has used to climb into whatever she wants to get in to. And there are tantrums if I don't let her help make her own sandwich, or cut up grapes, or pour her own milk...all over the floor. The only thing she wants to eat lately are frozen waffles because she can do it all by herself. My other kids were perfectly happy to be waited on. They still are, and even though it is a lot of work it is SO much less mess if I just do it myself. That is not an option with Chloe.

Chloe is also into everything. During her nap time, I have found her in the toilet, or in the bathroom shampooing the floors, or brushing her teeth (and the mirror and the sink). We have found her changing her own diaper, which resulted in sham"pooed" carpets. It is never ending. We are constantly on guard. We can't even sleep soundly. A few days ago we awoke in the morning and heard a whimpering sound. It sounded too close to be coming from Chloe's room, but we couldn't see her anywhere. She was sleeping under our bed. At 5:00 this morning she was once again in our room, making a bed on the floor out of every blanket and pillow that she could find.

Chloe is also mean. She hits and and scratches and pulls hair. I never thought one of my kids would be a bully. When we pick her up from Nursery we ask what she did at church and she smiles and says "hit kids" or "scratch kids". She does not take any crap from anybody, and she has a super scary glare.

Now you should know that I blame this on Seth. I am the worst disciplinarian in the world, and therefore depend on Seth to make sure our kids don't become social misfits. He has done well with the other two, but this one has cast a spell on him. The Nursery leaders once told me that they had to address Chloe's hitting with Seth and that he just smiled and responded with, "She knows she's the baby." When Alex used to get kicked out of the Nursery, Seth would hold him by the back of the neck and escort him in to the hall for a talking to, but with Chloe he just shrugs it off. And Alex wasn't even hitting anyone. He was just spastic. But this one is the baby and she can do as she pleases.

Just to give you a small taste of what kind of monster we are creating, here is a glimpse at the first 3 hours of Chloe today.

We were lucky today. Chloe actually slept until 7:30, so we were able to feed the other two and get Alyssa off to school. When I went to get Chloe out of bed, I found her sleeping with my scriptures. How sweet.

Now zoom out.

Alyssa had borrowed my scriptures on Sunday and had them in her closet in a bag. Chloe found them and tore dozens of pages out and crumpled them up. When I asked her if she did it she made a naughty face, while shaking her head NO. I took her in there about 6 times in the next hour to show her and ask again if she did it. Still wasn't her. Then on the 7th try, that naughty monkey walked in the room and gasped, like it was the first time she had seen my mangled scriptures. She grabbed up a few handfuls of the debris and said, "Oh no, garbage", and ran off to throw it away. Still wasn't her though.

As she was throwing it away she saw an old bag of fruit snacks in the trash and decided to see if there were any stragglers left in the bag, so this is the mess that resulted from Chloe's cleaning up.

Then she sat with her fruit snacks, fresh out of the trash receptacle, and her camera, and ate. Why a camera, you ask? Because Mommy had a camera, so Chloe had to have one too.

We picked up the garbage and whisked Alex off to school and hustled home to meet up with my visiting teachers. As we were chatting, we watched Chloe walk in to the kitchen and pull a chair up to the counter, grab an apple and a knife and climb up to cut the apple. I took her down and while I saying goodbye to my visiting teachers and taking a picture of the chair and knife, Chloe ran downstairs with her apple.

And did this.

She doesn't like the peel and if I don't peel it for her, she just peels it with her teeth and discards the peel wherever she sees fit.

This was all before 10:30 in the morning, at which point I went to the computer to upload these naughty pictures. Chloe stood right by the computer room door talking to me about Dora and Diego. What I didn't see until I turned around, was that she was standing there with a water bottle. She was pouring the water in to the cap and then drinking it. So naughty, but I had to grab one more picture.

I love that picture. You can see one drop of water suspended in mid-air on it's way to the bigger mess that lies below. I believe that is going to be a metaphor for my life today. This, my friend's, was just the beginning. Just a glimpse at the world I am living in. I am off to see what other adventures come with parenting a two year old today. Wish me luck!