Oh, the Terrible Twos... I Think We've Officially Entered Them!

This past week has really made me realize that we are officially in the Terrible Twos! And I have not been thrilled about it. While Gavin has never been a perfect angel by any means, he has been a pretty good little 2-year-old so far... of course, that is until this week!

It all started on Monday when I asked him if he would go get a haircut. I pulled every bribe out of the book to get him to go, promising him anything from treats to 1 hour worth of Greg playing cars with him, but he refused. Then I told him about all of his friends and relatives that get haircuts, and how they're so much fun (ha ha), but he still said no. (And you should have seen his hair! He was starting to grow a mullet!) So I finally ran out of patience and laid down the law (or so I thought), and told him I was cutting his hair and there was nothing he could do about it. We don't have a razor so I just used my haircutting scissors, and since it can be a little tricky to cut an entire head of hair with those, I really needed him to sit still. Well he would have none of that, so we put him in Ty's high chair and forced him to sit there. He screamed literally the entire time. You would have thought we were torturing him by the sounds of his screams! In the end, it took me 30 minutes just to cut his hair (that picture to the left is the awfully short result)! It was ridiculous. And there were numerous cut lines in his hair from times when he would move right when I was cutting, which look just lovely! Thank heavens his hair grows quickly... the only problem with that is that in a month or so, I will be fighting him to get another haircut. Oh joy...

Then on Tuesday, we invited my family to our house for Pioneer Day (more on that later). Gavin became incredibly possessive of his toys (a very new thing, getting worse by the day) and refused to share them with Connor and Aiden. He would literally pick up armfuls of cars and carry them around with him just so his cousins couldn't play with them! I'm shocked that even though he has probably over 100 little cars, and can't possibly play with them all at once, he just can't find it in himself to share! Oh, the madness! I am just so frustrated with this possessiveness problem so if any of you fellow moms out there have discovered a solution, PLEASE let me know! :)

And yesterday... well, yesterday was the grand daddy of them all. Greg bought me a treadmill for Mother's Day and I run/walk on it every morning. I always do it with the kids around and Gavin just knows to stay away from it... until yesterday, that is! He came up behind me when I was walking at a pretty fast pace and was playing with a dinosaur at the end of the track. I kept telling him to stop playing by the treadmill, that it could hurt him or mommy, and that he needed to go play somewhere else. Well, when I stopped hearing the dinosaur on the track, I figured he had listened, but the next thing I know I hear screaming. He had gotten his hand stuck between the track and the side rails/steps, and fortunately was able to pull it out pretty quickly, but not without pulling off quite a bit of skin in the process (the picture on the right is the aftermath). He has about 4 spots on his hands (2 on his fingers and 2 on his palm) where it is completely raw. He cried for about 45 minutes and I felt just awful - but he knew better, that little stinker! And I think he definitely learned his lesson because when I was on the treadmill today, he hardly came near! If only he could learn his lessons about haircuts and sharing! :) Bummer...

Anyway, on a happier (and much less frustrating) note, I thought I would tell you all about our Pioneer Day! We decided it would be fun to take the boys to the Dinosaur Park over in Ogden and they loved it! Some of the dinosaurs and the sounds they made scared Gavin a few times, but for the most part he loved it. He is still talking about it and asking if we can go back "today" (he asks that everyday). We then came back to our house where Greg and Mike took out Greg's car's windshield in an attempt to replace the seal around it. Well, they failed to check the size of the seal before taking out the windshield, and once they got to the point of putting it in, they realized it was about 2 times too big - and it will take at least another week to get a new seal in. So once again, Greg's car is sitting in the garage - undrivable - and we are down to one car! Oh joy... But anyway, the night ended on a better note by us having a barbecue which Kristin was able to come down for, and we just hung out after that. It was a great night to be outside because it was actually cool for once!

Well, we hope everything is going well for all of you. It is so hard to believe it is almost the end of July! Wow... Until next time! -Ash