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Terrible Twos - Take Two

Gareth Ellis

My children are amazing. I love them with all of my heart, but sometimes they can really test my patience.

Right now, Emi is deep into the terrible twos, and she seems to be taking it a lot worse than Rupert did. For him, I seem to remember him being a lot more mellow and easy going, and the terrible twos seemed to go by without much of a hitch. Although reading this it would seem my memory doesn’t exactly serve me too well.

With Rupert we seemed to have tantrums that were based on him not being able to articulate himself well enough. With Emi it seems that she’s too clever and will play Jess and I off against each other.

For example, so often you go to get her out of bed, or get her out of the bath, or read her a book and she’ll say ‘No, want Mummy/Daddy’ depending on whoever has gone to help her. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone to get her out of bed in the morning and she’s said ‘No, Mummy’ and I’ve had to explain (for far too long) that Mummy is downstairs, and she can get to her if she just lets me get her out of bed. Sigh. I mean, it’s literally just lifting her out of her bed and cuddling her so she can be put down and walk the 20-30 steps to see Mummy, but whatever.

My problem with Emilia though is that she’s so bloody beautiful. She looks at me with a cheeky grin or a cute little grumpy face and I give in. With Rupert, who is still just as gorgeous, he’s not got me so wrapped round his little finger.

Just recently, we thought it would be a lovely idea to take the kids around our village to have a look at the Halloween decorations - a fun activity for a 2-year-old you would think as they’re always pointing things like that out on our walks. However, Emi decided that she would like to go out in the rain, in October, with socks on and no coat. After 10 minutes of trying to explain to her that I would probably be arrested for neglect if I were to let her out in her undressed state, she still hadn’t given in and Jess and Rupert had left. Finally, FINALLY, she allowed me to dress her and take her out.

However, it was so long that I think Jess and Rupert were coming back round the block, so we missed them completely and we had our own walk. Still, she walked well for the first 10 minutes, before, of course, I relented to her request and put her on my shoulders.

It’s so hard with her being the second (and not just because she has me wrapped round her little finger already) but with Rupert at a bit of a difficult age too I sometimes find myself relenting really quickly to her requests. That’s mainly because I also have Rupert asking for something too and rather than get into a drawn-out fight with two toddlers it’s sometimes best to pick your battles and give in quickly for a bit of peace.

I know as they get older, they’ll get cleverer, but also I’ll know better how to deal with their tantrums. And if I keep telling myself that then I might just believe it.



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