Allie turned 2 last week. I'm pretty sure someone told her that she's 2 now and therefore she's supposed to fulfill some kind of cliche prophecy about being "terrible."When you have your second kid, you have a better point of reference about what is normal and/or different. If the first kid did/didn't do something, you naturally compare that experience to the second kid. Not in a competitive or better/worse mentality, just a factual comparison.
For example, when we transitioned Zachary from a crib to a bed, he stood at the door yelling at us for five minutes and then fell asleep on the floor every night for two weeks.
When we transitioned Allie from a crib to a bed, she stood at the door screaming at us for 30 minutes and then got back into her bed and went to sleep every night for two weeks. Not better or worse. Just different.
Zachary is a train wreck disaster zone everywhere he plays.
Allie picks up after me in the kitchen if I drop a speck of bread.
Disciplining Zachary is very simple, black & white. He responds immediately and our methods have been extremely effective.
Disciplining Allie is like putting together a 10,000 piece 4D puzzle that changes itself every 5 minutes.
She's not nasty. She's not malicious. She's very considerate and affectionate. She's so darn cute. And this girl is complex. It's like a strange combination of strong will, intelligence, innocence, hard-headedness, and sweetness.
I've heard this about girls. I'm not sure what I expected. A woman is complex. Why wouldn't a tiny version of a woman be complex?
Monday, when I got home from teaching, Zachary said, "Mommy, Allie wasn't listening to Grammy." Wednesday, when I got home from teaching, her teacher wrote me a note and said she was "mischievous" all morning. (I'm assuming that's the nice word she uses when she talks to parents of "those" kids.)
More often than not, Allie is really a sweet girl. Since last Wednesday, she's taken on a new little dynamic in her behavior that just reminds me I'll have to be on my toes for the next 16 years. I'm definitely ok with that. After all, I'm very familiar with the original prototype.
