(insert laugh here)….the past few weeks have found us entering into a phase where patience and sanity are pushing the limits. I consider my husband and I somewhat intelligent people; however, no school, seminar, or parenting website has even tried to explain how the heck you deal with a toddler’s tantrums. Are these the terrible twos?

It started about a month ago. I try and take every other Friday off to spend time with our Little Miss. She is 16 (almost 17) months old now and still fascinates me as I watch her advance. On this particular day, we did our usual morning breakfast, followed by a fantastic walk, great lunch with daddy, and then mama had this wonderful idea of getting the weekly grocery shopping done before the weekend rush started. Big mistake! As we walked into the doors of Target, Little Miss kindly started to tug away from me. Grabbing her to stop as I got a buggy, she proceeded to throw herself down to the ground, kicking and screaming bloody murder. Are you kidding me? With people looking and giving me the “control your kid” eye, my blood pressure began to boil. Do I spank her right here? Do I leave or become that parent that has a screaming kid throughout the store? I had no freaking clue. All I knew was I had a screaming kid and I was pissed. To add to that episode, these tantrums are starting to happen at restaurants or social events too. My husband is a lot more patient with her than I am, but we are still in this flux on how to discipline her effectively.

It’s good birth control I suppose, but how the heck do parents do it? We have been blessed with an extremely independent (i.e. stubborn) daughter. Watching her these past few months, I have been amazed at how quick she catches onto things, and more importantly how sneaky she is. She knows exactly what I’m telling her – I know it. But, when she is in a mood or doesn’t get what she wants, the battle is on and God help me it wears me out. How do we discipline a toddler? We both believe in spanking; however, I don’t think spanking every other minute is very productive. Then comes timeout which is a whole other story to me. She will not stay in the corner for anything. It’s so nerve racking. People are constantly asking when we are having another one. Our answer – as soon as we can tame this one! HA!

Long story short, just laugh with us during this stage. There are nights when we find ourselves exhausted and annoyed at each other because of different parenting tactics or having to leave an event early because we have an insanely grouchy Little Miss. I swear I’m starting to see gray hair and Dave laughs because he thinks he is balding more and more each day. All in all, I think this is God’s way of getting us back – for being the stubborn children we were to our parents and for reminding us that, even though intelligent, we sure as heck don’t know everything.

Much love,
Carla

A fun update on Miss Sasha. She is still the apple of our eye and getting extremely fun.  She is now 16 months old and we are entering into the “almost” terrible twos.  It’s so exciting to see her learning new things and becoming so curious about everything all the time.  With that curiosity, we have learned she definitely has a stubborn side (she gets this from her daddy as I have never known a Sepulvado to be stubborn!).  We have started introducing time out and I was raised with getting your butt beat when you needed it, so it’s been a mixture of both.

Besides her usual baby doll or kitchen set, she enjoys reading and LOVES music. Anytime there is music on, she dances around clapping and laughing. Not that I’m biased or anything, but the girl has some rhythm. She is very active in Gymboree and we are looking to start her at the Swim School hopefully this spring.  Her favorite song is “My Girl” which cracks me up because this was the song my dad and I used to dance to all the time.  Now, ole Pappaw has her listening to his oldies CDs so who knows what song will be next.  Nonetheless, each time her song comes on I enjoy seeing this huge smile pop up while she starts shaking her bootie in her car seat.  Let me repeat….I absolutely love this age!

Our televison watching consists of anything on LPB, esp Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, Super Why and I can’t forget Sesame Street with “Nelmo.” How do kids enjoy Elmo so dang much?  It’s crazy to me!  Her abilities are continually amazing me and while I know every parent thinks their child is a genius, I do wonder about how advanced she seems to be compared to other kids her age.  Her comprehension is by far greater than a typical 16 month old, and her coordination is dynamic.  I’m just nervous that the attitude is advanced as well and surely going to cause my first gray hairs to emerge.

In October, we celebrated her first birthday. I’ve always said I would not be one of “those parents” that has elaborate birthdays, so when I looked up and finally counted the 60 adults and 30 kids in our backyard, I had to laugh at myself and join the bandwagon. It was perfect though and we could not have asked for a better turn out. Sasha had such a great time and we’ve realized anything with the Anderson/Sepulvado family is never going to be small.

Daycare has been quite a challenge for us.  I didn’t want Sasha in a public daycare for the first year, so we have had my “adopted” mom (who is 70) coming to our house and watching her each week.  Although this set up is great, Lora’s health has been up and down prompting many days of Sasha being at work with mama.  Sasha at work with mama equals having to reschedule appointments with different clients and/or doctors (i.e. not fun).  It’s especially fun when the clients call and get to hear a crazy little one running crazy on the other end of the line.  Oh well….it’s my life and I love working and being a mama.  We have started taking her two days a week to a friend of ours that has two boys Sasha’s age.  It has been a great outlet to let Sasha play with other kiddos and to let her learn valuable lessons such as sharing.  I still know, however, that we will be looking at daycares sooner rather than later and my emotions are really mixed - Dave went to daycare; I was raised at home with Lora.

So in a nutshell, we have a very active, stubborn little girl in our lives right now.  Although we sit back and laugh most of the time, I have a feeling we better fasten our seatbelts because this is going to be one wild ride!

Much love,

Carla