Team Effort

I am now living with two toddlers who I swear are conspiring with each other to test my patience and limits nearly every minute of the day. For once, they are cooperating and working on their "teamwork." Yeah, thanks Wonder Pets for giving them THAT idea.

For the past several months, it always seemed as if they were taking turns being the naughty toddler, as if they were having some sort of mercy on me so that I wouldn't go completely crazy. It was almost as if they were tag teaming with each other, taking turns in the wrestling ring against the evil Mommy. Charley would be sweet, helpful, and listen to most everything I had to say, while Zander would ignore nearly EVERY word I had to say, tell me "no" at least 100 times per day, throw random tantrums for mysterious reasons, and was constantly into everything to the point that I spent most of my day chasing him.

And then, like a light switch, one would turn off and the other would turn on. Charley would become whiny, not listen to anything I had to say, throw tantrums, and argue with everything, while Zander would revert back to being funny, happy, and would back off saying "no" for a few days. This has been the pattern for quite awhile now, which was definitely tolerable, and I was able to put up a pretty good fight.

But now, for some reason unbeknownst to me, my children have decided to enter the arena together and put up a pretty good stinkin' battle, two against one. As I'm sure most of you know, whoever coined the term "terrible two's" simply had not gotten to the three's yet. Three can be pretty bad at times, not only because they still want to test every limit, but they can use actual WORDS to fight their battles. And when you have a child like Charley who can already articulate herself better than any three year old should be allowed, it can be pretty painful. However, this is not to say that the two's aren't terrible either. They are still pretty tough at times, as the child begins to test every boundary that may or may not exist in his/her world, and throw huge tantrums when one small thing is not perfect in this world. So, with Charley being knee deep into the three's, and Zander quickly approaching the two's, the two warriors' worlds have collided, and I guess they decided to take on the evil monster, Mommy, together. And somehow, it just doesn't seem fair.

I know, I know, all of you who laughed when I told you that we were having our children only twenty months apart are VERY tempted to give me the 'ol "I told you so" line. But I now beg YOU for some mercy because my children don't seem to be giving me at the moment. Thankfully they are both just charming and cute enough for me to keep them around awhile and not ship them off to the farm up north (a/k/a Papa Dave and Grammy Charlotte's farm) where I would pick them, oh say, when they are about seven or eight years old.