Terrible twos?

This has been an interesting week for Max. Lots of boundary-pushing, lots of meltdowns when he doesn't get his way, lots of not listening to us and lots of destructive behaviour. I get it. He's a boy. He's 2. But he's our little superstar! Where's our mild-mannered cutie-pie?!?! Well, we got reacquainted tonight.

After the fifth consecutive day of making Holly's job of picking him up at daycare difficult (typically, it's lack of willingness to get his boots on - today it was a chomp on the thigh), it looked like it was going to be an interesting evening. And I'd be going it alone, given that Hol and Leo were out at a book club event. After they left, Max and I only had an hour-ish to ourselves, but it was wonderful. He ate better and more quietly than he has in a while, he submitted to his diaper change, pajama-donning and tooth brushing without complaint and he hopped into bed for a couple of books before accepting a lights out without protest. I was blown away.

I'm not concerned that Max is going off the rails or anything, it's just another stage. He can recognize that he wants certain things at certain times, but he still hasn't quite hooked up enough neurons to understand why sometimes his needs can't be met (or why we choose not to meet them). It must be a pretty frustrating time for him and I'm trying to be understanding. Hopefully by trying to take the time to communicate with the little guy as much as possible we can try to keep the craziness in check. If this is what the toddler/preschooler cusp looks like, I can only imagine what the teenager cusp is like...zoiks.

My favourite part of our evening together was just before dinner. We were listening to some Nick Drake (credit to Uncle M for hooking me up back in the day) and I remembered the time that Max passed out on the hotel bed in Freddy Beach while listening to the same music. I sat Max down in front of the computer, showed him the picture I had taken and told him the story. He thought it was pretty funny. I clicked on another folder to show him a younger picture of himself. Then I went further back and he thought it was a picture of Leo. I thought "I wonder where he draws the line between knowing the picture is of him and thinking that it's a picture of Leo". I present to you first the pictures where he was able to identify himself:



Meanwhile, he believed the following pictures were all of Leo:



The cut point seemed to be May 2008, so when Max was 8 months old. Seems about right, given the differences in size of the two kids. Definitely a fun exercise. Max is such a big fan of looking at pictures and being able to identify people he knows. I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time down the road looking through albums. I wonder how long it will take for Max to think this was a picture of Leo?