Tot School, the Terrible Twos, Baby Boot Camp, and Life in General

Well, if you found my blog through 1+1+1=1, you may have noticed that I don't have any recent Tot School posts. Right now, we are on hiatus, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, after turning two, Nathanael. Turned. Two. I don't really believe in "the Terrible Twos"... well, let me explain that. I understand and agree that there is a normal and expected developmental stage which usually occurs between the ages of two and three during which a child begins to understand that he is a separate entity unto himself, and that with this developmental stage comes a very strong desire to explore and demonstrate that new found autonomy. This developmental stage can be full of crankiness and fussiness as the child's desire to exercise his own will conflicts with what his parents or other caregivers have planned for him, and will be better or worse based on a multitude of things, including the personality of the child; the personalities, parenting techniques, and expectations of the parents; sleep, exercise, and nutrition; the child's general health; and, of course, all of the unexpected variables that life throws at us. But I do NOT understand or agree with those parents who watch their toddler having a meltdown because he was denied a cookie (for example) and merely shrug their shoulders and say "He's in 'the Terrible Twos'" as if that's an adequate justification for both their child's behavior and their own lack of response. If that type of behavior is ignored and accomodated when they're going through the Terrible Twos, then how are you going to handle it when they're in the Threatening Threes (or the Fearsome Fours, the Formidable Fives, the Screaming Sixes, or worse yet, the Should-have-trained-'em-better-when-they-were-little Sixteens)? I firmly believe that a little one needs to be trained out of his Terrible Two behaviors as soon as possible, before the behaviors become habits and the child becomes That Kind of Kid.

Stepping down off my soapbox now.

Anyway, right now we are working really, really hard on developing habits of obedience, gentleness, and self-control; sadly, the laissez-faire environment that we had for Tot School is not conducive to building those habits at this time, so I either need to figure out a way to make Tot School more structured (which I think robs it of some of its value) or we will just continue to take a break until Nathanael is less "Terrible Two"ish. Right now, I'm trying to make life as structured as possible and eliminate unnecessary choices in his life... instead of Tot School, we're having Baby Boot Camp, LOL.

Also, we are (if God's time-table is the same as ours, which... maybe?) moving out of my mom's house into a place of our own sometime in the next month, and I really need to focus my time and energy on packing and purging. I am feeling SO much better so far in this pregnancy than I did during the last one, but I do find that I am "hitting the wall" earlier and earlier in the evening every day, especially if I've had a rough day with Nathanael, so right now slow steps towards this move should definitely be a priority for me, otherwise I'll find myself with an entire household to move and three days to do it in, which isn't going to work so well for me. :-)