Can We Quickly Get Past This Stage??

Leah has been terrible two-ing it up lately!

Driving to Brian’s parents’ house yesterday, I think she asked us “Where are we going?” 100 times during the 15 minute drive… that may or not be an exaggeration.  We told her “Grandma and Papa’s house” repeatedly… but eventually we started to ignore her since she was ignoring our answer.

While sitting on the couch last night with me, her with a coloring book and pen…

Leah: “I want to color this.” (pointing to the couch)

Me: “No!”

Leah: “I want to color this,” (pointing to the pillow)

Me: “No! We only color on paper!”

Leah: “Mommy I want to color things!”  

She tries to test every boundary possible.

Usually when I tell her no and try to remove her from whatever situation, she either:

1.       Throws herself on the floor, face down, crying

2.       Tries to hit, pinch, or bite me.

So off to time out she goes….

Our time outs are usually putting her in a bedroom (not her room), on the bed, and closing the door for 2 minutes.

Usually we find her still on the bed, still whimpering a bit. 

I ask her if she is ready to be a good girl and ask for her to tell me sorry if she tried to abuse me.

The sweet little girl usually takes over and she nods yes, whispers sorry, and hugs me to pick her up.

Time outs usually go pretty well for us. She usually changes her behavior after giving her some time to calm down.

But yesterday morning we had 5 time outs within 4 hours of her waking up!

The time outs were just not working too great…

I question if the time outs even work.

But what else is there to do? 

How do you punish a 2 year old?

I cannot bring myself to spank… and can barely even slap her hand.

How can I smack her hand for something while I am putting her in time out for hitting me?

I feel like it’s a completely mixed signal.

Don’t hit mommy… but mommy can hit you?

This age is exhausting mentally and physically…

I just keep trying to remind myself THIS IS JUST A PHASE.

*** I wrote this earlier... when I picked her up from daycare I was informed she bit a friend for no reason at all. Her friend was trying to climb the steps and go past her and Leah bit him/her!!  She is definitely going thru some sort of phase right now...