Terrible Twos

My niece, Olivia, just turned 2-years old and boy is she in the “terrible 2” stage. It’s amazing how a year ago, she was quiet and sweet and everybody believed she would be the “easy” mellow one compared to her brother. He has pretty much reached the end of his terrible phase and is now more easy to reason with at 4-years old.

Unfortunately, Olivia thinks everything is a game. And boy is she a poor eater. I’m assuming this is not uncommon in 2-year olds as her older brother went through a phase of not eating when he was that age. She’s also picked up her brother’s daredevil behaviors and fearlessly climbs up everything she can get her hands on and jumps off the arm rest of a sofa. It doesn’t help that she’s at an age where is imitates her hyperactive brother.

Her mom resorts to Youtube videos of lullaby songs on her iPhone when she can’t sit still and is difficult to manage.  This obviously is not a good solution over the long term as Olivia becomes accustomed to it and will throw a fit when she doesn’t give in to the videos. And I believe parents just don’t want to deal with the tantrum that that they give in for 30 minutes of silence.

While she is “terrible”, Olivia is also a very loving and caring child. She loves to be helpful and will help you put your shoes on before you leave her house and open the door and wave good-bye. She will also blow good-bye kisses. She’s a cheeseball with a big toothy grin and she loves the camera! Every time she sees her mom with the iPhone in her hand, she says “cheese mom”, to imply that she wants her photo taken.

She takes after her mom with her activeness. Spunky and sassy. She now knows how to ride her scooter. We bought a balance bike to help her learn to balance on a bike before buying one with pedals. She may also enroll in gymnastics and ballet. She also received a mini Barbie limousine courtesy of Mike at Limo San Jose. Thank you guys!

Her mom is working on developing her language skills as my nephew is a bit delayed in speech and language development, occasionally not speaking in complete sentences or speaking with grammatical errors. She has created a little classroom in her garage and spends a few hours a day working on  small activities with the kids.

It will be amazing to watch these little ones grow and learn.