Easing up

Things with Eden were 1000% better today. While we still had our share of tantrums, potty accidents, and other standard 2-year-old fare, and she is still "declining" to take a nap, she was actually very sweet, cuddly, and affectionate most of the day, did like she was told more often than usual, and spent most of the day using the potty and wearing dry training pants. 

I felt like I'd been let out of jail.

It's interesting because it's like when the tide went out on this last round of Eden's angst, interesting things were left washed up on the shore, so to speak. All of a sudden she's trying hard to be more verbal--actually "use" her words, to communicate, not just trying them out once out of novelty and reverting to screaming when she wants or needs something. She's saying new things, like "I know," and "Iowa" (a particular favorite). And, as noted above, she's suddenly taken a renewed interest in wearing underpants and using the potty (praise be).

I've heard from multiple parenting sources that "half" ages (2-1/2, 3-1/2, etc) tend to be times of instability and "whole" ages tend to be more stable times. As such, I've heard that the "terrible twos" are actually more likely to be exhibited by kids who are either 1-1/2 or 2-1/2. So I'm choosing to be cautiously optimistic that, with Eden's 2nd birthday on the horizon in just six days, her recent storminess was a developmental crisis of sorts, and that the difficulties that have plagued us for the past several months might be fading for the time being and that perhaps we're headed for somewhat calmer waters.