She's Only 2

My daughter is 2. My daughter is 2. My daughter is 2.

I've had to repeat this to myself a lot lately. It seems that, as a mama, it's very easy to view her as older than she is now that there's a newborn in the house. Yet...my daughter is still 2.

She is SO smart. Seriously. She's not even 2 1/2 yet, and she counts to 12, knows her entire alphabet, and even understands concepts like one thing being "better" than another. I mean, I know I'm biased, but she's a smart little cookie! This makes it really easy to forget that she's 2. 

We have just begun to venture out during the week as a little threesome, and it's gone pretty well. I haven't attempted the grocery store yet, but I'm sure I'll have to before too long. Last week, the 3 of us (Me, Allie, and Wyatt) decided to go up the block to the recently-opened Spray Park. Allie had {once again} taken a pretty short nap, and I had some afternoon time to kill before Adam would get home. She'd been asking to go back to the "Dripping Park" all day. It took about a half hour to get everything ready: swimsuit on, baby's diaper changed, toddler to the potty, snacks packed, sunscreen applied, baby's diaper changed again, drinks packed, toddler in the car to climb into her car seat, baby buckled in (and screaming), toddler buckled in, toddler's sunglasses lost, toddler's sunglasses found, towel and bag in the car...fewf. THEN, we were on our way. {Don't judge - I did drive to the Spray Park. I just don't want to get stuck walking the 15 minute walk home with a screaming baby at this point. He's only 5 weeks old. Gimme a break.}

When we got there, the weather was perfect. I found a spot in the shade for Wyatt and myself, and that's the first time she said it. "I want to go home." WHAT?! After all that?! And after she asked a zillion times to go to the "Dripping Park"?! "No, Allie, go play in the water. Look how fun it is!"

"No, Mommy. I want to go hoooooome!"

Hmm...how can I make her go play in the water? I'll go with her.

"No, Mommy! I no want to! I want to go hoooome!" This time, she was getting louder, and borderline crying.

Here's where the communication breakdown happened. She continued to get more and more upset. I told her that if she didn't calm down and go play, that we would just go home. She ran around in one little sprinkler for about a minute, and then came back and whined some more. I {with great frustration} put everything back in the bag, dried her off, got both kids back into their seats in the car, and took her home. 

The entire way home, she kept saying things like, "Yaaaay! Thank you for taking me home. We get to go home now!" I told her we wouldn't be going back to the Splash Park for awhile. I intended this as bad news, but for her, it was just what she wanted to hear. This made me even more frustrated! Why didn't she get it!? Why didn't she see all of the time and energy that it took for me to take her to do something so fun and special? Because she's only 2. No amount of frustration or reasoning with her was going to change that.

I brought her home, turned on a princess movie, and we just relaxed until daddy got home. Sometimes, there's just not much I can do in the way of convincing and explaining...because she's only 2.