I Think "Terrible Twos" Should Be Considered False Advertising

Ok - when did my little sweetheart of a little boy turn into Mr. Attitude? Asher, almost 21 months, has really started testing the waters over the past couple months. If I tell him "no" he screams at me. If Dusty tells him "no" he screams at me . . . somehow that doesn't seem quite fair. Little stinker - I guess Mom has to be the bad guy even though Dad is just as much the disciplinarian. I'm really thankful that the disciplinarian role is pretty equal so Asher doesn't expect one of us to always give in. We'll leave that to the Grandmas and Grandpas - I don't think they mind. :) We've started putting Asher in timeout for 1 minute when he does things like screaming at us or hitting. He was on a hitting spree for a while there, but that seems to have calmed down for now. The screeching, on the other hand, is totally naughty . . . and unfortunately, funny. I think that's one of the hardest things of parenting a toddler - the things Asher does that are clearly naughty often tend to be the funniest because he's totally trying to assert himself. We mistakenly thought this phase wouldn't kick in until closer to his 2-year birthday; feels like we got the short end of the stick with that, but it seems as though it isn't all that uncommon for the "terrible twos" to hit early.

So far, this is definitely the hardest phase of parenting because we're stll trying to figure out how to stop Asher's bad behaviors. (I'm sure that doesn't ever end.) Also, Dusty and I have to make sure we're on the same page as far as how we react to his naughtiness. BUT, this is definitely the most fun we've had, too, because he picks up on things SO quickly and you never know what he will say or do next. For example, when we were taking Asher to get his haircut a couple weeks ago, Dusty sneezed and all of a sudden we heard "bless you" from the back seat. So precious. I also love that he calls the playground "wheeeee" because he loves the slide and that's what he says when he goes down it; and when we lay him in bed at night he whispers "night-night" and "love you" to us; and he'll bring a puzzle over and sit in our laps and put it together over and over again waiting and watching to see how proud of him we are. He's still my little sweetie-pie . . . with a "wheeee" bit of an edge. :)