The terrible/terrific twos

Well, Juliet is of course two now. She has been acting two for quite some time, but now she has kicked it up a notch and decided that she will be the best darn two year old ever.

Not only has she mastered the classic two year old "no" she is now working on variations of no so she can use it as the situation demands. For instance, she has in her repertoire "I can't or I can't do it." Usually this is used in a situation where I say "Juliet, you're not allowed to play with that, put it down." "I can't do it." She also says, "I don't like it." Usually used while I am dressing her or brushing her hair. Today she came up with a new one while I was wiping her face off (which she hates), she said "You wiping my face. NO THANK YOU!!!" So, at least she was being polite. On an opposite note, she has started saying "I LOVE it" very dramatically while doing routine daily activities like watching a DVD or eating breakfast.

I guess Juliet also heard somewhere that two year olds were supposed to do it themselves, because she increasingly wants to do it herself. This Christmas while she was helping wrap gifts she even wanted to write out the gift labels herself, which involved scribbling on them. She became very indignant when I would try to step in, saying, "I do it."

Juliet is watching what Mom and Dad do so that she can do it too. She likes to help me take care of Cole and even tried to wipe his bottom while he was on the potty yesterday (much to Cole's irritation). We have a ritual after bath time where when I get Juliet out, I wrap her up in a towel and "hold her like a baby." I usually sit by the bathtub with a towel on my lap and grab her out. Well, a couple of weeks ago after Juliet had gotten out of the bath and been dried off, she climbed onto the closed toilet and spread a towel over her lap. She held her arms out and said "Hold Cole like a baby." I had a hard time explaining to her that Cole was too big for her to hold. I have also seen her pretending out the post-bath ritual with a big bear getting a little bear out of a play bath and wrapping it up. I'm glad she's mostly picking up my good moment to imitate. My amazing two year old!