Music. Your two year old wants to hear the same song over and over. I don’t know what the song is right now, but back when my teenager was two, it was pretty much anything by the Wiggles. I tried to throw in some Raffi or Disney soundtracks to stop my mind from melting, which backfired on me (“Boom Boom Ain’t It Great to Be Crazy?” No, it isn’t) but for the most part, it was a whole lot of “Fruit Salad (Yummy Yummy)” over and over again. The words still haunt me.
For our weekend together, we listened to Lana Del Ray and Alt-J, the Arctic Monkeys and Glass Animals. Then, for variety, we listened to more Lana Del Ray. My daughter described it as Ke$ha with more depressing music, which I do not consider to be a good sales pitch. I realize all rock and pop music has been about sex and drugs forever, but seriously, does every song have to be about sex and drugs? It’s not even sex or drugs. It’s sex and drugs, together. I had a long conversation with her about sex and drugs. Lana Del Ray played in the background.
Food. Do you fight with your two year old over eating breakfast? At least your two year old wakes up at breakfast time. My teen and I were at the beach for two nights, which meant we really only had one full day. She slept until 10:30, and that was with me waking her up every half hour, starting at 8:00, because she didn’t want to sleep away the day. But she also didn’t want to eat breakfast because she had big goals for the other meals.
Lunch was to be at her favorite sushi restaurant, which is the only place in the whole state where she will eat sushi, the place that is a mere four and a half hours from home. We didn’t eat until two in the afternoon, and that was after a long walk on the beach and hitting her favorite surf shop. I still can’t believe I didn’t black out while driving the car.
And dinner? Well, here’s a fun one. She couldn’t decide where she wanted to eat dinner because she was too hungry. I drove for twenty minutes and named over fifty restaurants, all of which she vetoed. When she finally made a decision, a seafood restaurant we love, she ordered a bowl of French onion soup and a salad that comes with pecans and blue cheese crumbles and strawberries. She refused to eat the soup because she couldn’t figure out the melted cheese on top, and then she picked around the salad to just eat the nuts and berries and blue cheese crumbles out of the salad. Where was the seafood, I ask you?
After eating less than a squirrel in the back yard, she declared herself full and wanted to know why it took so long to get our bill. Then, on the way back to our room, we had to stop at the grocery store so she could get a box of Drumsticks, those artificial tasting “chocolate” covered “ice cream” cones. She ate three of them before we even sat down to watch television.
Television. Yes, even television is a battle with a teenager, much as it is with a two year old. If you turn off the television, both will pitch a fit. And if you leave it on, well, forget all hopes of watching anything you want. While you parents of two year olds are watching Jake the Pirate and Mickey Mouse House or Club or wherever Mickey hangs out, the teen prefers a darker mix of programming. After the dinner and the ice cream, we hunkered down on the couch for a Netflix marathon of American Horror Story intermixed with episodes of Bob’s Burgers, just for a break from the sex and suspense. It doesn’t seem like the healthiest combination, but honestly, she saw all the seasons of American Horror Story on the iPad in her bedroom last summer before I figured out what she was doing up there. I wrongly assumed she was just touching herself inappropriately, but instead she was desensitizing herself to sex and violence by binge watching serial killers and weird sex. Oh well; chalk that one up to a big fat parenting fail.
Clothing. You know how you fight with your two year old over clothing? Put on your shoes. Wear a jacket. No, you can’t wear your pajamas in public. Yeah, well, that is the same fight I had every time we left the condo. The teen thinks if she wears what she slept in while out in public, it’s almost the same as staying in bed. Granted, she does sleep in a sports bra and sweats, but still, at some point, those articles of clothing could stand to be washed. And when it’s freezing on the beach, a hat isn’t a bad idea. Or a jacket. Or sunglasses and sunscreen. Has she learned nothing at all about the weather and dressing appropriately in the past fifteen years? If she has, she certainly doesn’t want me to know it.
Bedtime. I know you are tired of fighting over bedtime with your two year old. Sometimes your little one is sleepy and admits it, but the rest of the time, your child will do anything to stay up late, even if you can’t handle a minute more. My daughter is the same way, except we aren’t having the fight at eight o clock; we are having it at eleven. I could tell her to go to bed five times between ten and eleven, but I will still be the first one asleep. While the two year old needs one more story or another stuffed animal or a drink of water, the teen needs to put on acne medicine or pluck one more stray eyebrow hair or just five more minutes of television, until the next commercial. I fell asleep before any of that was over. I have no idea what time she actually conked out, but it does make a little more sense why I can’t get her up in the morning.
I remember when my teen was a two year old. People would tell me that parenting doesn’t get easier, it just gets different. I don’t know; it seems pretty similar to me. It is definitely less physically demanding, but the emotional toll is greater. And the concerns are on a different level. I don’t worry if she will ever sleep through the night, and if she does, with a dry pull up. What I agonize about is things like peer pressure and drug use and inexperienced drivers and sexual assault and where is she going to go to college and how am I going to afford that.
Which makes me wonder…will I ever sleep through the night?
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