Living with NO

Welcome! Welcome to the world of NO! where every question posed to your toddler is answered with a resounding NO! Do you want supper? NO! Do you want to wear your hat outside? NO! It's a lovely little stage of development we like to call "The Terrible Twos."

Alright, it's not that bad. Well, actually, some days it is. The Terrible Twos have arrived at our house and I, for one, am ready to pack their bags back up and send them on their merry way. They crept into our house slowly, starting with a tiny tantrum here, a few uncalled-for tears there. Then, one day, the word NO came out flying out of Kaylin's mouth. It flew right out, shot across the room and landed behind the sofa. And we haven't been able to catch it since.

At first, we didn't mind living with NO--this little word allowed Kaylin a little more control over her world. We initially saw this as a good thing.

"Would you like carrots in your mac and cheese?"
"NO, I don't want carrots mommy."

Fine. I can live with no carrots.

But this past week, NO has grown into this horrible monster who stands next to Kaylin all day long and lunges at Brian and I when we ask the most innocent of questions.

"Do you want to colour a picture with me?"
"NOOOOOOOO! I don't want to colour a picture!"

"Can I change your diaper?"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Don't touch my diaper!!"

"Will you please wear your coat in the sub-zero weather?"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I don't want to wear my coat!!!"

Sigh. What are you gonna do? NO has the upper hand right now. Starting a fight with NO just results in a lot of tears, crayons strewn across the floor, and exhaustion on all fronts.

All we can do is hope that NO gets bored and decides to move on. Until then, if you see Kaylin outside with no coat on and a very wet diaper, don't blame me. Blame NO.

This is your toddler on drugs

In response to my "woe-is-me" post last month, my wonderful friend Jo invited me to her lovely Toronto home for a weekend of toddler-less fun. And let me tell you, it was pretty fun. We shopped in stores filled with breakables, we sat in a coffee shop and chatted about grown-up things, we ate dinner in front of the TV and we even went to a late movie (where I found the energy, I'll never know). To top it all off, I didn't roll out of bed until 10:30. It was a little slice of heaven. (Thanks again Jo and Rich!)

But as great as those blessed few hours were, I still missed my little gnome back home. I made it back just in time on Sunday night to spend a few cuddly moments with Kaylin in her rocking chair. By Monday morning, she and I had a lot of catching up to do. While I didn't think she'd care to know much about my weekend, she obviously had lots to tell me about hers. Now, in general, Kaylin talks a lot. But I have never heard her talk so much in her life! The funniest part was, very little of it made sense. I fear someone slipped something into her Rice Krispies. You be the judge. Here are a few examples of what I heard that morning:

• "I'm a crab. Look at me shake my body!"
• "I have a hummingbird in my nose; daddy has a dinosaur in his nose."
• "I said hi to the moon."
• "I see stars --red, green, blue, yellow..."
• "I need to help the baby with scissors. Snap snap snap snap."
• "Remember the bee, went up in the sky to get honey??" [This is Kaylin's way of referring to The Bee Movie, which she saw with B the weekend before.]

Perhaps her Krispies were clean after all. (Can't say yet, the drug test is still out at the lab.) But I like to think that our little mouse just has a very vivid imagination.

Noah...er, Nemo the Loot Bag

We're proud to announce the arrival of our newest family member, Nemo (a.k.a. Noah--see explanation below) the fish. Nemo was Kaylin's "loot bag," the take-home gift she received for attending her cousin Besmah's baptism. I have to say, it's the most interesting loot bag I've ever seen.

When we got home from the baptism, we asked K what she wanted to name her new fish. Well, we had a bit of communication breakdown, it seems. Kaylin is very much my daughter in that she often speaks softly and mumbles her words. And oh yeah, she's only two. So when she named her fish, I could have sworn she said "Noah." I was so pleased. What a great and original name for a fish and how smart for a two-year-old to come up with Noah! Gee my kid is great.

But as the days passed, Kaylin began correcting me when I called the fish Noah. And yet other times, she would also refer to him as Noah. Well, she straightened me out today when she exclaimed over lunch, "No mommy, that fish s'not Noah, that's Nemo!" And she was mad about it too.

I stand corrected.

Candy!

What do you do when you spend $30 on an adorable Halloween costume for your toddler? Well, you go trick-or-treating to ONE house, of course!

Last night was Kaylin's first taste of trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, she slept through her first two Halloweens. Her first year, she dozed in her snuggly chicken costume while daddy carried her around the neighbourhood. And last year she was so worn out from a fun day at daycare that she was asleep before we could take her out. Even so, she wasn't old enough to understand the rituals of Halloween or to eat candy.

This year, she was old enough to know that it was a special night. We started the evening at Grandma's house so that Brian could hand out comic books (and promote his biz) to a larger "audience" of kids. (According to our neighbours, only 10 or so kids came to our end of the street.) But when asked if she wanted to put on her costume and go out, Kaylin replied that she wanted to watch TV. This was just fine with us. It was too cold and windy last night anyway.

When we got home from Grandma's, we were able to convince Kaylin to put on her lion costume and knock on our neighbour's door. It was her first and only stop, but it was great one! She was so thrilled the get candy in her pumpkin-bucket. Candy! she exclaimed. She couldn't get over it. With the wind whipping at her mane, our little lion headed back home, dumped out her bucket (she scored five little chocolate bars from one house - thanks guys!!) and counted each piece. She was one happy lion. It was the best Halloween I've had in a long time.