Words!

Since Sam turned two, almost two months ago, his speaking has exploded. What's interesting to me is that even though he started speaking much later than Ben (who started at 14 months), he's picked up words and sentences at a much faster rate. With Ben it was a new word every week or every few days. With Sam we started out at "blue ball" and now we're getting phrases and short sentences out of him. Keeping track of how many words he's saying isn't even an option, as with Ben, because everyday he's saying so many new things. It's not like we're having intellectually stimulating conversations yet, but after waiting two years for him to speak, having him tell me he wants, "More milk" is awesome.

However, we are venturing into the terrible twos with him. It's one of those things that honestly made me pause for a second while considering having a second child. Do I really want to do that AGAIN? Well, it's here and we're doing it. Monday afternoon Sam woke up from his nap in a HORRIBLE mood. Everything made him mad. We were out of milk, so he had to drink water. Tantrum. I put that water in a straw cup instead of a sippy cup. Tantrum. I showed him the sippy cup I was going to use, and he agreed, but then I poured the water from the straw cup into the sippy cup. Tantrum. Unfortunately, we really needed to go to the grocery store, because we weren't just out of milk. I was hoping the car ride would calm Sam down. It did, but when I suggested he ride in the car cart, instead of pushing one of the small carts they have for children (curse you, Schnucks!), he flipped the fuck out. Total melt down. I could not calm him down, so we had to leave. We did not get his precious milk or anything else. Then when we got home he went right to the fridge asking for milk. Tantrum.

It was frustrating, to say the least. For some reason this week a switch was flipped in his brain and suddenly he wants to do everything himself, which is good and a very toddler thing. But of course it leads to even more frustration on both our parts when he just CAN'T do something, either because of lack of skill, or danger. It's just one of those things we have to get through and he'll emerge from it a more competent human, but I'll probably have a couple more grey hairs.