23 months and a whole new attitude!

A peaceful child reading to herself and being really good!! Where did she go??????

One month shy of 2 years old, Karlee has a theme song: Patti LaBelle's "New Attitude!" I know it's just the 2 year old coming out in her, but, Lord help me, it is really testing my nerves!! She has always been independent but nothing like the last few weeks.

One night at dinner, she all of a sudden decided she didn't want to sit in Karlee's chair anymore. She wanted to sit in "other chair." I kept telling her "No ma'am. You need to sit in Karlee's chair because it was special and only hers." She was having no part of it and kept pushing her plate away. I finally said "If you are not going to eat, then get down and go in the living room. Mommy and Daddy are trying to enjoy their dinner." So, she got down and disappeared for a brief moment. She came right back in the kitchen and got up in the chair at the end of the table and said "eat mommy." I finally gave in because I knew she would wake up in the middle of the night and be hungry. At least she was eating.

All went well the rest of dinner and Karlee pretty much cleaned her plate. Then the next "new attitude" kicked in. The Everything is Mine stage!! I picked up her plate to put it in the dishwasher and she had a major breakdown. "No mommy. It's MINE, MINE, MINE, KARLEE'S. Stop mommy." You would have thought I was taking off her arm or something. I probably hear "no, mine" at least 100 times a day. Everything in the house has become hers and nobody is supposed to touch anything. I mean ANYTHING!!



Then, like a light switch, she'll be the loving, sweet, laid back child I know. I was cooking breakfast the other morning and couldn't find Karlee. I picked up the camera because whenever she's missing and it's completely quiet, I know I'm going to find her doing something. Well, she had gathered pillows from the living room and our bed and made herself a comfortable reading corner. When I walked in, she just said "hey mommy" and went back to flipping pages in her book (upside down!!).



The worst "new attitude" I'm dealing with now is Karlee wanting to be "nicked" (her pronunciation). She'll just randomly take her pants and diaper off and play completely in the buff. This particular night we had removed her shirt at dinner. I went to the potty and Karlee followed me to sit on her potty like she normally does-with diaper on. I turned off the light and Karlee wanted to stay on the potty. The next thing I knew, the diaper was thrown out the door. Chip just started laughing!! Karlee refused to put her diaper back on and took off to her play corner. Guess what I was doing not 10 minutes after these pictures were taken. Yep! Cleaning up tee-tee. And, this past Monday when I was putting up groceries, she came running in the kitchen saying "change mommy, wet". Her entire outfit was soaking wet from the waist down. She had unsnapped her pants legs, removed her diaper, tee-teed and poop-pooped in her play corner. I see potty training in our very near future!!




And, like a light switch again, she'll be back to normal Karlee. She wanted to wear a necklace like mommy on New Year's Day so I found her one that matched her outfit. She wore it all day and never played with it. She would just show it off when someone told her she was wearing a pretty necklace. While my dad and I were frantically watching the Auburn game, my mom called out and said "Allyson, bring your camera quick!" I ran to the bedroom and found Karlee in my old doll bed amongst my old baby dolls. It was absolutely adorable and made my mom and I laugh really hard. She has been found in this doll bed a lot lately, especially around nap time. She'll just disappear and we'll find her lying in it.

I know this phase will pass and she'll be out of the 2 year old craziness. Then, it will just be another phase that will take it's place. I'm just sitting back and trying to capture pictures of everything so I can show them to her kids one day and say "See what your mommy put me through. You need to do these same things to her so she'll see what payback is!!!!"