Leo Turns 2

Leo has decided that, rather than waiting until July, he's going to go ahead and be 2 now. He has started throwing some quite impressive tantrums. He's gotten so good at it that he can even keep going once he's forgotten what he's crying about. Yesterday was probably the best one I've seen so far. We were out for a walk and he wouldn't stay out of the street, (more about this later) so I decided that it was time for us to go back in. I picked him up and, as usual, he started crying. But he wasn't crying that hard and it should have been over in a few minutes. Instead he cried for over an hour. And no matter what I did, he just kept crying harder and harder. I tried holding him, playing him music, offered him food and a drink, ignored him, put him in his crib alone to cry for a while. . . I even threw him in a cold shower with all of his clothes on. Nothing. Finally he cried himself to sleep and stayed that way for three hours. (His usual naps are 1.5 - 2 hours long.) The worst part was that he woke up in the same grumpy mood as he had been in all day. I'm not looking forward to the next couple of months.

Some other things that Leo has learned are:

-How to knock on doors. It's pretty cute to see him do it when he wants into the bedroom or the bathroom, but not so cute when he knocks on all the neighbor's doors when we go outside to play. We've been apologizing to a lot of new people these past few days.

-How to close his eyes when he doesn't want you looking at him. He seems to be in a little bit of a shy streak right now. Whenever we notice that he's doing something and turn around to look at him he makes a grunting sound and squeezes his eyes closed. If he opens them and you're still looking at him you get screamed at.

-How to say "no" when he means it. He used to just babble, "no, no, no" all day long. Now he actually tells you when he doesn't want something. (It happens a lot.)

-How to test/push parental limits. This mostly happens with the "no playing in the street" rule. Leo loves to wander around outside, so we generally take a walk every day. And every day I have to remind him that he's not allowed in the street. He's started trying to trick me. First he'll walk right down the middle of the sidewalk. Then he slowly moves over until he's right along the edge but still on the sidewalk. Next he'll lean over and get something out of the gutter (usually leaves) and show it to me. Then he'll do that again, only he actually gets down in the gutter and looks at me like, "Can you tell I'm in the street?" At this point he guts pulled back onto the sidewalk and reminded that he can't be in the street. After we do this several times I tell him that if he does it again we're going home, at which point he will slowly inch his foot over the curb until just his toes are in the street. Then I pick him up and carry him, crying, back inside. We do this every day. It's loads of fun.

P.S. I'll put some pictures up sometime soon. I have no idea where the camera is.