The Two's

We were faced with a difficult question this week when we met our friends for dinner this weekend.
No Jack? Where is he?

Yes, where was he? He was at my sisters this weekend for a sleepover. Which works well since my niece is 12 yrs old and she and Jack get along like two peas in a pod.
Jack is going thru this – I will not stay still stage. I wonder if any of us went through this when we were 2 years old? Taking him to a restaurant proves to be a bit hard to handle sometimes. We find that Jack has to be absolutely starving for him to sit still and stay thru the whole meal with the rest of us. And that doesn’t even work because while we order and wait for the food, Jack will let us know very well that he is hungry.
So our friends, without knowing this, asks – Is he going through the terrible two’s?
I cringed. I do not like that term. Very Much. Whoever invented it must have just witnessed a child that was not their own and came up with it. I would never call my child terrible. Who would? Not that our friends were calling Jack terrible, but that phrase is so well known throughout childhood, that it is the first thing that we say to our kid when they have a birthday. Happy Birthday! You will now be terrible this year!!!
What? That is something that I have never associated Jack with. I have never said that outloud about him, nor would I say that to another kid. Perhaps this is my ultra sensitivity coming out, but I would like a nicer term to be used .
Jack, like all children, is just learning what to do and what not to do. If you think about it, this whole time since infanthood, kids get what they want. They are hungry- you feed them. They are wet and are unhappy –you change them .You find out that there is a snack that they love to eat – so you give it to them as their #1 snack. Why wouldn’t they have a hard time learning the concept of No. It’s something that they rarely hear. But will be hearing a lot more as they get older. It’s a learning process that we are going through. Just now, Jack has learned to say Thank you after we give him something. And that took awhile for him to understand that. This is just “one of those things.”

Let’s just call it that.
“Where is Jack?”
“Oh, you know, it’s just one of those things.”