The other night, Ian was drifting in and out of his ‘No-No-Nothing‘/Headless Chicken mood.
When he’s in this mood, the best way to maintain sanity in our home is to try and distract him from himself: a bath, building blocks, Spongebob Squarepants, tickle him senseless, etc. Sometimes this backfires. Very often tickling will only make him more excited, and Ian will writhe on the floor, laughing and crying at the same time.
If the mood continues for too long, Ian reaches a sort of critical mass. He runs away as (surprisingly) quickly as he can toward the couch, bounces off the cushions and falls to the floor, writhing in grief. He can stay in this position for quite some time.
Sometimes the old stand-bys fail, and Kelly and I are left to improvise.
This particular night’s mood was particularly nasty. Ian wasn’t eating (another lovely phase), chicken had been thrown, and Mommy had spent all day dealing with this precious child and looked as if she was ready to…well, the frightening part was that I couldn’t tell what she was ready to do.
So we played music. There wasn’t time to review our CD collection for a proper selection, and though Ian will bust his move to anything - anything - there was a good chance that a single CD wouldn’t be varied enough to keep him entertained. Thankfully our DirecTV service comes with 36 music channels of potential distraction.
We tried them all. Gospel, 80s, Solid Gold Hits, Disco, Radio Disney - it didn’t matter, as long as Ian was happy. We jumped, we twirled, we hopped, the three of us shaking our groove thangs to the Bee Gees, Glen Miller and Journey. It was a blast!
Then Kelly and I started wondering if we could remember our ballroom dancing lessons from a few years ago. We had trouble with the Fox Trot, but did better with our swing.
In the middle of a turn, I noticed that Ian had stopped dancing, and was smiling and watching us. When we stopped, he nosed his way between us, wrapped his arms around our legs, and started pulling us back and forth. So we danced, stumbling around the family room with Ian wedged between us, his head bobbing to and fro.
As a nurse told Kelly the other day, we’re fortunate that Ian has already started his Terrible Twos. I had never heard the words ‘fortunate’ and ‘Terrible Twos’ used in the same sentence before.
Until now, this milestone of Ian’s development has been a general phrase of impending doom, like ‘root canal’ or ‘audit’ or ‘report card’. These are words shrouded in mystery and unnamed darkness - they are the terror of the unknown. And they’re never as bad as they seem.
My visions of the Terrible Twos had always been of a kicking and screaming child, clinging to a doorjamb or candy display. I’d see the slingshot dangling from Dennis the Menace’s back pocket, or a moustached villian dry-washing his hands after tying his teddy bear to the railroad tracks - nevermind that Ian can barely throw a ball without landing on his face.
For the most part, Ian’s Terrible behavior is what Kelly and I call his ‘No-No-Nothing’ mood:
- I want milk.
- Are you crazy? What are you thinking, giving me milk! Get out of my sight!
- You’re horrid parents! All I want is a little milk; I’m only a little boy, after all. And there you sit, taunting me with a full glass of milk and keeping it out of my reach!
And so forth.
I ask if he would like some cereal. He nods. I hand him the cereal. He runs away, screaming. I’ve started calling him Sybil.
These moods also escalate into episodes when he wants everything at once and nothing at all. He becomes completely inconsolable, throws himself on the floor, and lies there, sobbing into the carpet.
It’s actually quite funny to watch.
I think the problem is that he wants to do everything himself, but also wants to be the baby. It’s a championship bout between the Ian who climbs to the top of the jungle-gym by himself and the Ian who snuggles in our laps just before bedtime.
These two personalities can get along quite nicely, at times. When it’s time for bed, he takes me by the hand and leads me upstairs, but when I lift him into the crib he burrows his head into my chest and wraps his arms around my neck.
Ironically, I think the Terrible Twos are the beginning of what parents want for their children - independence. We want them to walk on their own and do things for themselves. We want them to tell us what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling. But not yet; it’s always too soon.
Maybe this struggle of Ian’s personalities is just a reflection of the conflict he sees within his parents.
