Metal Meredith

I just had to share these because I am so happy they turned out well.

She is the goofball in the middle acting all silly (yellow shirt.) Her good friend Sam is the second from the right on the bottom.

This is your only warning.

When you don’t have kids, the horror stories start at “terrible twos”. When you have kids, you come to know better.

I was expecting Vivienne to turn into a beast overnight when she turned two. When she was very little, I overheard some moms talking about their toddlers. I clearly remember exactly what one said to the other “Terrible Twos? No way. Three is so much worse.” I was very nervous at that point.

Welcome to almost-three. Please, take a seat and let’s chat about it. I will tell you a few stories of the past week and you decide.

Sunday: Vivienne went through another non-pooping weekend and by Sunday she resembled Andy Rooney’s permanent furrowed brow. At noon, Phil and I decided to administer a little something to make things “run more smoothly” for her.

Although the label clearly said it would work in 15 min up to one hour, 8 hours later she was hitting and screaming and crying at both of us until she finally cleared out. After she picked out a “poopie prize” (yes, it has come to that), she informed both Phil and I that she was all done and would never poop again. We looked at each other, smirked and thought “Great.”

Tuesday: We met my sister at the Mall for some lunch and some playtime. Since Monday was a happy day, Tuesday started the cycle of full of crap = nasty attitude all over again. After she curled up on me when she was done eating, I thought we were in for a nice afternoon. Of course, this was just a ploy to get to the playground.

She spent a good hour jumping, climbing, playing with other kids, running around, laughing, sliding and having a great time. When it was time to go, I gave her two warnings. On that last, I waited for her to go down the slide, informed her it was the last time and then grabbed her when she came out.

Suddenly and without warning, her head spun around 360 and she started spitting pea soup all over the….ok, maybe not that bad, but it wasn’t pretty. Fortunately, if my sister ever questioned her decision not to have kids, she was immediately satisfied. Vivienne proceeded to hit me, scream as loud as she could, spit at me, spit again, kick, go limp and then yell a few more times as I picked her up with one arm and grabbed her shoes with the other.

It didn’t end there. She yelled most of the way home until I started to talk to Phil on the phone. She then proclaimed that she was angry and showed me so by pushing her brow in and down, glaring straight at me and pursing her lips. It didn’t stop until she fell asleep at naptime.

Wednesday: After school, she typically plays with Sam in the school parking lot median, transporting the gravel from one end to the other in the “Gravel Relocation Project 2006”. On Wednesday, she walked straight to the car, grabbed the keys from my hand, turned around and looked right at Sam. “No Sam, I go home now,” as she put her hand right up in front of her and turned to get into the car. Ouch.

Thursday: So far today, we have been in time out twice, where she is forced to sit in her tiny chair, facing a closed door in the extra room. It isn’t a happy place and she knows it. After enduring her spitting at me for not getting Her Majesty juice right when she asked, it was time out for her. Instead of her typical 2-3 minutes, it lasted 6 because she would yell, scream, kick the door and continue to spit.

When I finally came into the room to collect her, I sat down next to her and didn’t say a word. She looked up and said (with a tiny smile, I might add), “I kicked the door and spit at you when you were in the other room.”

Lord. Help. Me.

or Everything Is Coming Up Sweetie

Vivienne has many pet names, some nice and some not-so-nice. I won’t bother typing out the list because inevitably someone will be offended that we called her “Poppy Nuts” for a good year. But one that has stuck the whole time has been my constant use of “Sweetie Pie”. Apparently this has not been lost on Vivienne.

About 6 times a day Vivienne asks if we would like to play with her dollhouse. Up in her room are 4 play areas; one has a dollhouse, across the room is the playground, floating around between is a Jungle Train and on her table is a Pirate Ship. We spend our time taking the 3 boys and girls, the mom, dad and baby back and forth from house to playground. Then, the tiger will be sad and need to find his friend the parrot at the pirate ship and all hell breaks loose.

Somehow in the midst of all of this playing, Vivienne named all of the people in her game. This is where it all began. There is a Asian girl, her name is Meredith. The mom in the house, her name is Meredith, too. Then, the dad is Dad, the little boy is Little Boy (we never said she was super genius.) Both the baby and the little blond haired girl ended up with the name, ‘Sweetie Pie’. We thought that was really cute.

Then, everything started being Sweetie Pie, the bear and the little bear was Mommy and Sweetie Pie. Phil made her a tiny juice cup out of playdough which suddenly made her juice into a game of mommy and sweetie. Sticks, lint, pieces of paper, french fries, cars, frogs, nothing is able to escape the name game. Lately, the banisters on the stairs have even been tagged. When going up or down, Vivienne will tell you, “You hold onto the Mommy railing and I will hold Sweetie Pie railing. Then, we will share the big one together.”

The other fun in naming comes when there is more than 2 things and they get seperated. If in the car and one goldfish snack falls down into the chair, the other has lost his friend. Then we must do a little fake crying goldfish that is sad because he lost ‘Friend’ goldfish in the chair. Later, when reunited, the goldfish will exclaim “Sweetie, Sweetie, I find you. I miss you so much!”

I suppose we should just thank our stars there no one has been named “Dumbass” and move on.

It all had to start sometime.

Since I am making an effort not to talk about previous topics in every post lest my queasy or about to pop friends can’t take it, suffice it to say that a milestone was reached and Vivienne was rewarded with a visit to Pigtails and Crewcuts for her first real haircut. Up until now, I had been cutting her bangs myself and even did that sweet little bob she had last year. However, I am not a hairstylist and in order to avoid criticisms from peers and sideways glances from the other moms at school, I took her to the only hair salon for kids in Richmond. (I hate the name, by the way.)

Vivienne was ok until we got there, then she became the shyest child on the planet. She was excited to see the train set and the toys in the waiting area, but quickly shut down all emotion as it was her turn to pick out a chair. You see, at Pigtails and Crewcuts, patrons choose between a police car, fire engine or airplane as their chair. All of them are old fashioned metal pedal cars modified with swivels on typical stylist chair platform.

Vivienne picked the fire engine but didn’t say another word the entire time. She froze with a lollipop in one hand and an eye on Dora the entire time. She cringed when he started spraying her hair with water and nearly lost it a few times when he was brushing it out. Finally, she said a few words here and there but didn’t snap out of it until they opened this giant treasure chest of crap at the end of her cut and she picked out a ‘prize’. (*of note: You can even sign your kid up for a “Glamour Party” and host a birthday there where your child and all her (let’s be serious that I am not gender bias but come on) friends can get updo’s, manicures and pedicures and makeover..HOORAY!*end note)

My poor kid was completely traumatized until we got to Phil’s office where Cristina, Jennifer and Sara all made a big Suite C fuss over how cute it was. It wasn’t long before she was doing laps in the office and flashing poor Aaron, Phil’s employee, when deciding it was time to pee in the potty, eye-shot from his desk. She informed me several times that day that she didn’t like her new haircut.

Now, she asks to go every other day again. She actually brushes her own hair instead of screaming and running in the other direction when she caught a glimpse of the comb. I just can’t believe that at 3 years old, I had to make a decision to cut off all her hair because she wouldn’t let us brush it or continue to have the argument all the while staring at my child with Wal-Mart hair, as Cristina puts it.