Annie's Antics

I’ve always said that Annie was born into this world as a ‘terrible 2’ and never has stopped.  Her strong willed personality is a daily conquest for us.  I’ve read lots of words to describe a child as mine but the one that makes me chuckle a little is ‘spirited.’  Yes, Annie you are indeed spirited!  It’s such a nice way to say your child is strong willed, opinionated, feisty, relentless and the opposite of laid back.  Let me divulge you in a few short stories to give you some insight into our daily lives living with a ‘spirited’ child.

Let’s start with my favorite moment of just last week {insert sarcasm}.  Annie had her 1^st dentist appointment, which I knew was going to be a real ‘treat’ for me to hold her down for.  But what I didn’t realize was the real struggle was going to take place in the waiting room.  We arrived, I get Annie settled playing with some toys and I’m filling out this ridiculous, elaborate paperwork that is asking for a full medical history for a 22 month old.  A mom and her child exit the back dentist office and head for the door to leave and all of a sudden, Annie freaks out, runs towards this lady and is saying “Mama! Mama!” and latches onto her leg.  I grabbed my spirited child and going “Annie, no get over here.”  This lady is stopped in her tracks while I’m trying to unlatch my child from her leg.  This mom leaves and Annie goes NUTS!  Screaming and pounding on the door saying “Mama! Mama!”  Every time I try to grab her to comfort her, she hits me in the face.   Then she starts running over to everyone in the waiting room, doing the same thing.  ‘Mama!’ and latching onto these other Mom’s legs.  I’m grabbing her and am right in her face saying, “Annie, I’m YOUR MAMA!!”  And she kicks and hits me making me look like a child abductor of my own child.  Then the dentist comes out to talk to another parent and she runs over, latches onto his leg screaming DADDA!  Oh ma gaud was I mortified by this point!  So I grab her, pin her underneath my arm, sideways across my lap and grab the clipboard and start filling out the paperwork as quickly as possible with her trying to escape my arms.  At this point, I have zero tolerance and she is pretty much hanging upside down off my lap while I’m vigorously filling out paperwork and she is screaming at the top of her lungs.  What a sight.  Needless to say the actual dentist appointment went pretty well, given she was screaming, the dentist had a great view of the inside of her mouth and we were in and out pretty quickly at that point.  Moment of the year right there.

 

My spirited child is also a real joy at dinner time.  If she’s not presented with a hot dog for each meal, she arches her back, screams and throws her plate on the floor.  Lovely.  I use to give in and give her whatever she wanted but I’m so over the meal time battle and have gotten to the point where I don’t care if she goes to bed without eating dinner.  It’s a rare occasion when she will actually eat good for us.  What she likes one day, she refuses the next.  I always try to give her 3 items at meals, 2 of which I know she has ate in the past and maybe 1 new item so it’s not like I don’t give her options.  She used to love macaroni and cheese and now I can’t get her to even taste it.  We waste way too much food at our house because my 22 month old will purse her lips and refuse to even try stuff.  I would never make her eat something she doesn’t like but what kills me is she won’t even try it, and I mean at all.  I’m pretty sure she would eat a 12 pack of hotdogs in one day if I’d let her.  Kid’s obsession with hot dogs is a little strange.

While we are on the food topic, how about my banana story?  We keep bananas on the counter and Annie will run over to them, and point and say ‘banana’ so I give her one and she was eating them when she asked for one.  Then one day, I grabbed one for her and peeled it and she instantly threw herself to the floor screaming .  “Annie, what the heck, you just asked for this?!”  So then I was stuck eating about 3 bananas a day because this is what she would do each time.  We finally figured it out.  One day I grabbed the bananas off the counter and just handed the whole bundle to her, she grabbed the banana she wanted and ate it fine.  I’m stunned, thinking…all this time I’ve been eating all these bananas and it’s because she wanted to choose which one it was, so many struggles could have been avoided if I knew this.  What 1 year old is that picky over which banana out of the bundle they get?  Well my spirited child is.

Annie normally eats a cup of individual yogurt every morning.  I happened to have a pint of yogurt that was getting close to expiring and wasn’t going to eat it myself so I had a hunch that Annie wouldn’t eat it if it wasn’t in her usual container of yogurt so I took one of her individual cups and washed it out and spooned the left over pint of yogurt into it and tried to give it to her.  Nope, she saw me do it and was not having it, wanted a fresh one that was sealed.  The next day, I then tricked her, pulled out an individual cup, pretended like I was taking the seal off of it for her and then quickly swapped it for the old cup of the other yogurt I had from the previous day.  She had a hunch something was up but didn’t actually see me make the switch.  That kid examined that yogurt cup so thoroughly, looking for any signs of my tampering.  I couldn’t believe the way she looked it over.  I was on pins and needles waiting for her to throw it on the ground, yogurt splattering everywhere while she goes into full tantrum mode.  Luckily not the case, I ended up fooling her and she did eat it but it’s just mind boggling how she is on to us all the darn time!

Nothing is more ‘fun’ then the daily outfit battle we have every morning.  I know having a girl especially sets us up for these battles but to have it start around 20 months old?!  Seems crazy early.  She wakes up fine, eats her yogurt and then when I start pulling out clothes from her dresser, that’s when it goes downhill from there.  As soon as I reach in, she runs over and gets really mad.  I’m open to seeing what she wants to wear but most of the time it’s the craziest outfits and I’m not letting her out of the house looking ridiculous.  Over the summer I don’t know how many times I had to tell her no, you cannot wear your swimsuit to church today.  Many mornings, getting her dressed involves pinning her down and forcing the clothes on her while she is kicking and hitting me in the face.  I’ve tried the whole laying out 2 outfits to let her decide and with no luck she goes straight to her dresser, not happy with my narrowed selection.  Once she is dressed and I have sweat running down me, then comes the shoes.  Sometimes the shoes is worse than the outfit battle.  She has these really cute Ralph Lauren hot pink shoes and they’ve become a favorite of hers.  The problem is that she drives her daycare teacher nuts because she they are too easy for her to take on and off constantly all day long.  And let’s face it, hot pink shoes does not go with every outfit.  At night I’ve gotten to the point where I let her wear whatever she wants to bed, go ahead spirited child and wear polka dots and stripes, I don’t care!  But she thinks she should then get to wear her hot pink shoes to bed.  We’ve tried slippers and she is so demanding on those darn pink tennies!   Then we have to fight her to get those darn shoes off before bed.  It’s totally exhausting.

Then there are the car rides.  Nothing is worse than being in a small enclosed space with a spirited child screaming on the top of her lungs.  We try to plan any long trips around her nap/bedtime schedule because it is just brutal riding with her for long periods of time.  She isn’t one who likes to sit still so being strapped down is the main issue.  And for the life of us, we can’t figure out how she at times can escape out of her car seat straps.  It’s like watching Houdini escape a strait jacket, totally mind boggling how she can do it when they are on her tight when we strap her in.  Even strapping her in is an ordeal at times when she is fighting hard against being put into her car seat.   We’ve been thru 3 different car seats with this child, it’s not the car seat, it’s her.  Recently, my car dvd player stopped working, making the 15 minute ride to and from daycare especially brutal lately.  She loves it when I sing Old McDonald Had A Farm to her but let me tell you, 15 minutes of that song gets old fast but ANYTHING to keep her content I’ll do!

Restaurants, church and places where kids should sit still are also a joyous event for us.  Anymore, the idea of having a child sit perfectly still or to color quietly I’ve learned is an impossibility.  I don’t care if she is running circles around our table at a restaurant or playing in the aisle at church.  As long as she isn’t being too disruptive to those around us, then I’m the one with the child on the loose.  It’s far more disruptive to try to pin her down and make her sit quietly than it is to let her run around.   Kids just want to be kids. 

We rarely take Annie with us to grocery stores.  Why?  Because again she, likes to run around.  Running around is okay but she wants to touch everything or eat a random chip off the floor and that’s when I start hyperventilating.   Won’t sit in the child seating of the cart, won’t be good if we move her to the cart area, but for whatever reason she wants to ride under the cart which I hate.  First off it’s gross under there.  And not to mention I’m always terrified I’m going to run over her finger or a foot because she’s goofing off down there.  I’m always enamored when I see these kids her age sitting contently in the child seat of the cart.  I turn my back for a second and Annie has figured out how to get out of the seat strap and is standing up, ready to fall to her death.   I usually leave the store forgetting 10 things and end up having to go back.  It’s just too much work.

She normally follows me around the house.  But the other day she was really getting into everything.  I was trying to get ready in the bathroom and I step away for literally maybe 30 seconds because heaven forbid I had to pee, which is just in a separate part of our bathroom and I come back to the main bathroom to find the bathtub running and no Annie to be found.  That stinker turned the water on and then ran and started tearing all my shoes off my shoe rack.  Everywhere she goes it’s just like bombs are being set off behind her. 

The one morning I decide to have brunch with my friend’s, which never happens and is like a treat for me, I get a text from Aaron saying “Annie just completely erased my entire phone.”  Um how?!  Apparently there is a special combination of buttons that if you press exactly in sync, your phone will say in the display ‘erasing’ and Aaron tried to stop it and shut it off but it was too late, it erased every single thing on his phone.  Thankfully he had mostly everything backed up but it still took him nearly a half a day to recover it all.  Good work Annie {insert sarcasm}, it was impressive to say the least. 

Our next child has to be laid back and the complete opposite of our first born spirited child right?!  She has to be!  It can’t get worst?!  Annie does make the thought of caring for a newborn look easy compared to a day chasing her.  Or maybe the more honest and terrifying thought I have is the one of having to care for a newborn while Annie is running loose and out of control doing who knows what.  I know Annie’s spit fire personality will mean she will do great things and have lots of drive and passion in life but to be honest some days it’s hard to remind myself of that.  Sometimes at the end of a day, I reflect on that screaming car ride home or the fact that she threw her plate of spaghetti on the ground hollering for a hot dog or that she leached onto another Mom’s leg making me look crazy and I just sit and chuckle to myself and I think my God do I love that kid!  I can’t imagine her any other way. Everything she puts us thru sure does make life interesting and her spirit is what makes her my Annie.   Can’t wait for the REAL terrible 2’s to begin…. now those will be the stories!