Twos, Twos, The Trouble with Twos

I have to admit I have kind of a love-hate relationship with the "twos". By the "twos" I mean the age- 2 year olds. It is such a fun age and yet such a hard age.

I find myself, lately, needing to remind myself that this is such a brief moment in time and that our littlest  monster will indeed not stay 2 forever. Some days the hate relationship is stronger than the love relationship (not with Sarah, but just the age in general) When the older kids went through this stage,  it was busy too. But, not as busy as we find ourselves now. We are now faced with the daily challenge of trying to juggle the needs of two school aged kids and their homework, activities, etc in addition to the continuous monitoring Sarah requires. Our nights go something like this.....Alex and Anna get home around 4, Sarah immediately starts acting out and trying to get more attention (after all, she's had the house and all the adult attention to herself for the last 7 hours). If she is not paid continuous attention she will just get into one kind of trouble after another until you are forced to give her attention. The next 3 hours are spent fighting with the older two to get their homework done, preparing and eating dinner, chasing Sarah, making sure all school issues for the next day are taken care of and then running the older two to various activities 3 nights/week. Most nights by the time we get them to bed we have asked each other more than one time "why is it that we wanted kids????" Tonight, for instance, I was attempting to play a game with the older two since we had only battled an hour to get through homework, we had a little time to do something "fun" together. However, there is really nothing "fun" about trying to play a game with a 2 year old who insists on stealing all the pieces, knocking the gameboard on the floor, ripping up the cards, attempting to eat the dice and in the middle of it all decides that it would be a great time to pour a bottle of soy sauce onto the kitchen floor, because you know, it only took mom about 3 weeks to get to scrubbing that floor last weekend, so why should it stay clean?

And then, when the house is all quiet again, I can reflect on what I absolutely adore about the twos. They are becoming so independent and their personalities really start to develop. They interact more- with both the environment and others. They are learning so fast and can pick up new skills with amazing speed. They understand how to say I love you and know how to give the best hugs imaginable. They belly laugh until tears run down their face about the simplest things. They are ALWAYS excited to see you when you come home, no matter what. They are still small enough to cuddle on your lap and watch them fall asleep. They once in awhile like to be picked up and you can pretend (if only for brief minute) that they are still, indeed, your baby. And, at the end of the day, the love relationship always wins. And so, since I know this is my last official 2 year old, I will get some extra bear hugs, hear a few more belly laughs, practice new words, watch with amazement at the simple things like snow and ice and just try to appreciate the twos for what they are- fast, furious and (sometimes) fun :)