At 2 years old, Mikayla’s favourite things are, drawing with chalk on the driveway, eating pickles, smelling flowers, reading, building pillow forts and putting bubbles in her bath. She loves reading Robert Munsch books, especially The Paper Bag Princess and David’s Father. She goes up and down the stairs to her room and remembers where she leaves her toys if we can’t find one of them. Her “friends” include her stuffed animals like her Baby Bunny, Mama Bunny, Rosco the dog, Kitty Cat and Ducky. It’s actually the cutest to see her give them all “huuuuuggsss” in the morning and when she hasn’t seen them for the whole day. She loves seeing all the neighbourhood kids too. When it’s starting to get dark she tells me “shhh! Kids sleeping!” I ask her which kids? And she names the kids on our street. On a nice day you’ll find her drawing outside with her Dad, saying hi to everyone on the street and walking her doggie, Zoey.
“The Terrible Twos”
Everyone told me, “oh get ready for the Terrible Twos!” And yes, it totally is a thing. One minute they’re as happy as a clam, then you say something or take them away from what they’re doing and they throw a full on screaming, crying tantrum. But the best way that we’ve found to avoid a tantrum is by saying something like, let’s do this then we can come back to that! For example, if Mikayla needs a diaper change, she’ll throw cry or throw a tantrum if we were to scoop her up from what she was doing and take her upstairs for a change. She’d be kicking and screaming the whole way up and while changing. So to avoid that, I say to her, Mikayla! Let’s go upstairs and do that first, then we can come back and build more blocks. She’ll whine a bit, but I’ve already taken her hand and started leading her up the stairs. She’ll usually start going and then forget that she was in the middle of playing with her blocks downstairs.
She also says “NO” a lot. From my point of view, I try not to look at it too negatively. She’s just learning how to be independent and make her own decisions. So I don’t fight her. I just give her another option. If I tell her we’re going to the car and she says “NO No No NO!” I say let’s bring your blocks to the car or a few toys and you can show them where you sit! Or if I want her to brush her teeth before going downstairs to play, but she wants to go downstairs, I say bring Baby Bunny to the bathroom and show her how you brush your teeth! She gladly marches into the bathroom to show off to Baby Bunny that she can brush her teeth.
I’m no expert, but I just find these little things work! And ta-da! No, or rather… fewer tantrums.
Sleeping
Mikayla still naps for a couple hours in the middle of the day, she’s in bed by 830pm and awake at 8 am or sometimes 7:30 am. Lately, whenever the lights turn off, she gets up and says “DARK!!” in a really scared voice. So we’ve been giving her a little nightlight to hold while she’s in bed. She also likes to read in bed. She asks to go to sleep with a book and sometimes we can hear her talking about the book before she falls asleep. I’m not worried about it, because she ends up falling asleep anyways. And I remember as a kid, I’d always read before going to sleep. Her bedtime may change when we do daylight savings again, but I’m hoping the change doesn’t affect her too much.
Speaking
Mikayla is as chatty as ever. She doesn’t stop talking. She plays with her toys and talks to them, tells them what to do, tells herself what they’re doing. She talks while we’re reading, she talks while she’s looking out the window on car rides. She even talks herself to sleep. She can say “love you, Dad”, “love you, Mom”. She calls out for Zoey in the morning and also calls her Lola and Lolo, Nona and Nono because she can’t quite say the letter L yet. She’ll tell you what she wants and what she doesn’t want and connects her words with actions. So she’ll point at animals, laugh and wave bye to everyone. When I tell her we’re going to a party, she asks if there will be “pahty hats?”.
Potty Training
This is gonna happen. Mikayla isn’t potty trained YET but we have a start date. I’ve booked time off work, Chris and I have a plan… we’re committed! We’ve been telling her that we’re gonna throw away her diapers and she’s been okay with it. She can help me sing the alphabet song, play Simon Says (almost…) and count to 10 (not entirely in order). So she understands direction and after repeating and repeating those games, counting and singing the alphabet she gets it. So if we practice and practice potty training and commit to it, I HOPE we can finally say goodbye to the diapers. Wish us luck!!
Amanda is a writer, photographer, videographer and a content creator with a passion for sharing stories. With her family of 5, they share experiences, tips and ideas that empower Moms to make memories with their families right here in British Columbia.
