Wild Child

lunamoth

lunamoth

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This is a thread for parents. Actually, this thread is an excuse for me to type out my rant about chasing my two and half year old all day long. :)

First, she is very fast. And she plans her escapades and times them to when my attention is elsewhere (sometimes online! imagine that!). In under one minute she can run into the bathroom, slam the door and lock it, remove the toilet paper from the holder and put the whole roll into the toilet.

In under three minutes she can climb her play kitchen, climb the outside part of our stairs to about the seventh step, climb to the top of our library cart (actually just used for collecting shoes and bags by our door), push a chair over to the sink, fill two cups with water and dump at least one on the floor. Note that I am following right behind her undoing each life-threatening move and she's off to the next before I've recovered.

Today, during her "nap" she emptied all of her laundry basket all over the room so she could use the overturned basket to get to the top of her upright dresser, throw everything off the top onto the floor, open up her moisturizer cream, spread that all over herself and the room, open up her diaper wipes and use all of them (about 50) to "clean" the moisturizer...

Making dinner is a riot, it goes like this: open the refrigerator, slam it shut to bring Ella back in from the garage, open the refrigerator again and reach for the green beans, slam it shut and run to get Ella out of the driveway where she has run in her socks and taken all the rest of her other clothes off. Put Ella on the floor next to me with a toy. Get out a colander, go help Ella put the juice back in the refrigerator and close the door and then run to take away the sharp knives Ella has taken out of the drawer while I closed the refrigerator...

Between running after Ella and not being able to get a meal on the table we are all losing weight in our family. I believe she is part monkey and part gazelle. Should I just let her climb and hope we don't end up in the emergency room?
 
ugh your 2 1/2 yo sounds like MY 2 1/2 yo! Mine climbs up on everything.. Ive never been able to use a high chair because he's an escape artist, he can wiggle his way out of anything. He always seems to get ahold of the one thing hes not supposed to have.. and he doesnt play with his toys he only wants to play with things that he is not supposed to play with. My only saving grace with him is that he loves Sesame street.. Boohbah...Teletubbies...Blues Clues. On a good day he will spend hours watching these shows without being a little hellion.

The phase he just left was having to be naked all the time.. he would strip to his bare little body and run wild.. now its shoes.. He brings me a pair of shoes to put on him then he takes them off and brings me another pair of shoes to put on.. this can last for hours at a time.
 
We had to give up on the high chair early too. And the booster seat was just as bad--she tore it apart! I've run out of containment systems.

Glad I'm not the only parent in world whose 2.5 is wild. Speaking of which...gotta run!

lunamoth
 
I said:
Just the one wild child each? :)
Click to expand...

No, two total. Our older girl is almost five. She was also wild at 2.5 but is tamer now. Not easier, just tamer :) .

As wildness goes, it's actually the silences that make me worry most. You know what I mean...you've been chasing and/or refereeing for hours then suddenly as you stand there washing dishes you realize that neither kid is in sight and all is quiet...

do you continue washing dishes? :D
 
lunamoth said:
This is a thread for parents. Actually, this thread is an excuse for me to type out my rant about chasing my two and half year old all day long. :)

First, she is very fast. And she plans her escapades and times them to when my attention is elsewhere (sometimes online! imagine that!). In under one minute she can run into the bathroom, slam the door and lock it, remove the toilet paper from the holder and put the whole roll into the toilet.

In under three minutes she can climb her play kitchen, climb the outside part of our stairs to about the seventh step, climb to the top of our library cart (actually just used for collecting shoes and bags by our door), push a chair over to the sink, fill two cups with water and dump at least one on the floor. Note that I am following right behind her undoing each life-threatening move and she's off to the next before I've recovered.

Today, during her "nap" she emptied all of her laundry basket all over the room so she could use the overturned basket to get to the top of her upright dresser, throw everything off the top onto the floor, open up her moisturizer cream, spread that all over herself and the room, open up her diaper wipes and use all of them (about 50) to "clean" the moisturizer...

Making dinner is a riot, it goes like this: open the refrigerator, slam it shut to bring Ella back in from the garage, open the refrigerator again and reach for the green beans, slam it shut and run to get Ella out of the driveway where she has run in her socks and taken all the rest of her other clothes off. Put Ella on the floor next to me with a toy. Get out a colander, go help Ella put the juice back in the refrigerator and close the door and then run to take away the sharp knives Ella has taken out of the drawer while I closed the refrigerator...

Between running after Ella and not being able to get a meal on the table we are all losing weight in our family. I believe she is part monkey and part gazelle. Should I just let her climb and hope we don't end up in the emergency room?
Click to expand...
My Dear Moth,

It gets better--or different--I have four of those beautiful children now (oh, wait, those are grandkids:) . That's not counting my beautiful daughters and my terrific stepson. Yes, they do all those things--enjoy them while you can. Guess what I did today? I gave my fourth grandbaby his first haircut (and saved the curls in the "ritual" plastic bag.
It will all be okay. I have faith in you. Just love them.
 
I have a 13 yo daughter.. The reason I wasnt prepared for my wild child is because she was the perfect child.. sure she has sarcasm down to an art form and thinks shes smarter than me (which she might be)..but she never gave me gray hairs.. she never climbed on things or threw temper tantrums.

I think someone played a cruel joke on me :p
 
InLove said:
My Dear Moth,

It gets better--or different--I have four of those beautiful children now (oh, wait, those are grandkids:) . That's not counting my beautiful daughters and my terrific stepson. Yes, they do all those things--enjoy them while you can. Guess what I did today? I gave my fourth grandbaby his first haircut (and saved the curls in the "ritual" plastic bag.
It will all be okay. I have faith in you. Just love them.
Click to expand...

Dear Inlove, Oh, I know how blessed I am. :) I pray it will all turn out OK for my girls. However, my 2.5 wild child is actually the easier of my two daughters. My older daughter has some trust issues that we feel we are dealing with effectively, and yes through love love love to do this, but I still worry that there will always be issues about this in her life.

Thank you for your encouragement.

peace,
lunamoth
 
Faithfulservant said:
I have a 13 yo daughter.. The reason I wasnt prepared for my wild child is because she was the perfect child.. sure she has sarcasm down to an art form and thinks shes smarter than me (which she might be)..but she never gave me gray hairs.. she never climbed on things or threw temper tantrums.

I think someone played a cruel joke on me :p
Click to expand...

Hi Faithful, I've heard of other parents in your situation, the first child (or even the first few children :) ) are compliant and/or easy, then along comes the "spirited" child ;). So often they will say "if our first one was like this one he'd be an only child." :D

My best friend's son is in his early 20's now (she was a young mother, I am, shall we say, a late-blooming mother). She would talk about how at one and two years old she would put him on blanket at the beach or in the yard or whatever, and he would stay on it. Her experience was so different than mine! If I do not have a physical hold on my children they are gone...

I would not trade my girls for the world, nor would I change anything about them. They are who they are and I cherish every shade of their personalities. Actually, the thing I would change is other people's perceptions and comments to me about parenting, but that also is out of my control. :) If you have a wild child, I think you know what I mean.

lunamoth
 
I have a tendency to let my wild child run free as long as he is not doing anything in which he endangers himself which I then redirect him to something more acceptable. I dont want him to lose any of his spirit and his insatiable curiousity about EVERYTHING. I came to the realization with the help of God.. that he's just curious about everything.. he wants to test the limits of his little world and thats the makings of a little genius :) My daughter is content to stay in her little world but her perceptions of her world are far older than her years.. Two totally different children with 2 totally different styles of learning.. My daughter will read anything and learn.. my son is hands on learning.. he wants to see how things work and usually breaks them in the process.

The only thing im really strict on and this is just recently because he IS only 2 is that he says please and thank you... Im working on excuse me atm. :)

I usually disregard peoples comments about my wild child and how I should parent them. God gave me that wild child for a reason. :p
 
FS, Sounds like we have a similar approach to things...

Speaking of which, "nap" time is over. I don't think she slept at all. She just gets out of her bed and plays the whole time, but as long as she's quiet it's fine by me (and what else would I do? can't make someone sleep!).

cheers,
lunamoth
 
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