The Signs

How did my parents ever survive my stages of two and three?

I have long chuckled sheepishly at the horror stories they tell about me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I would ask myself "Why didn't my sisters act like that?" But then I'd shrug it off. Yea, I was difficult. Yea, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. And yea, I am the black sheep in the family, so it all makes sense, but it was long, long ago...

And then I became a mom to a mini-me, my second baby girl, G.


My ray of sunshine daughter recently turned two,

and I swear she awoke the next morning and said "Hey, I'm two! I'd better start acting like one."

She is still almost always a ray of sunshine, full of smiles and kisses, but I am seeing me as a two-year-old coming to the surface inside of her. And not just any two-year-old, but the one my parents jokingly hoped I would have one day: payback.

So the signs have been there all along that she is my mini-me: the curly golden hair (mine eventually turned brown), her chubby cheeks, her insatiable appetite, and her cute button nose.

But then the signs became stronger when she turned two...

The first sign of it was the word "no."

My first daughter never said the word "no" until she was three years old, but my mini-me knows it and uses it and ignores it, upon her choosing.

The second sign, stubbornness. One would think that since I am the queen of stubbornness that I would know how to handle my own daughter's stubbornness. That's not the case. My discipline tactics have no effect on her. And I have to play the bad cop and good cop with my husband being deployed, so if I can't hold the upper hand with her, well, all is lost.

The third sign, her ability to cry for L.O.N.G. periods of time (due to her stubbornness). I watch her, mouth agape, when she throws herself to the ground and cries. Or walks around the house, crying, for minutes, swatting away my efforts to calm her down.

The fourth sign, her very very strong sense of independence. There's a reason I like being alone so much, the freedom, the independence, and my little girl shows this in every way.

And the fifth sign, she's a ball of fire. While I see my high-spirited oldest as a firecracker, my second one is like the sun, burning bright all day long. She is serious yet cheerful, compassionate yet headstrong. She is up by 4a.m. ready to start her day and ends it by running around naked and shouting while I run the bathtub water.

I love my little one so much; she is still my ray of sunshine that runs up to me to kiss me whenever I drop something, who wiggles her little hand inside my shirt sleeve when I'm holding her, and who patiently watches her older sister while waiting her turn.

But when my parents tell me stories, I shudder to think "this is going to be me, wait it is me already." Like when I threw myself down in the aisle by the front pew of our church shouting to the entire congregation "I want gum!" until my parents dragged me outside, throwing a major tantrum the entire time.

Different setting, different ingredient, but yes, that's happened already.

And so I struggle to find the words, the actions that will connect with my daughter. But then, from my parents, I know that nothing ever really worked until I simply grew out of it, sort of.

Despite all of this, I am loving it. My two daughters are so different from one another, and so amazingly beautiful inside and out. My heart swells with love for them every moment of every day. I can only imagine how much bigger my heart will get when our third daughter is born.