growing up

Whitney and I have been a little out of sorts these last couple of weeks. Like she has been driving me crazy. Freaking out about everything. Having major tantrums and fits over every little thing. I was thinking maybe the terrible twos had come early and mourning the loss of my sweet little girl. But THEN I had a revelation: We have entered the

Independence and Communication Frustration Phase!!

This is how I discovered it: Getting Whitney a drink had become a big problem. She would freak out every time I handed her her cup- throwing it on the floor, crying, if I tried to talk to her and find out what was wrong she would push me away and say "doh, doh, doh". At first I thought maybe she was just mad when it wasn't juice in her cup, but then she did it with juice too. I tried leaving her alone to get over it. I tried hiding the cup and bringing it back out a few minutes later with the same results. A couple of times I put her in her room for a minute when she hit me while I was trying to figure out why she was freaking out. I finally ended up trying to always fill up her cup when she wasn't in the room and then just bringing it to her, but that wasn't always practical. SO, two days ago when I had given her juice and she was doing the usual freak out, it just came to me--- she wants to put the lid on herself!! I had seen her playing with cups, putting the lids on, and I realized that must be it-- and I was right! The last two days we have had zero problems with that because I am letting her put the lid on her cup "by herself". With minimal help from me. Yay!

The best part is, this principal applies to just about everything else we were struggling with- I just let her do it herself, or at least start to, and then if I come in and help since she really can't do it alone she's okay with it. Wow.

The poor girl had just been suffering from knowing exactly what she wanted to do, but not being able to totally do it by herself, and on top of that, not being able to TELL me what she wanted. What a frustrating time for a child. Thank goodness she's learning a couple of new words each day. And thank goodness I am now alerted to her stage of development and can act accordingly. :)