There comes a moment after my child begins walking where I look at them and think: “That’s not my baby, that’s a little person.” Patches has inspired this thought many times in the past few weeks. He’s turned a developmental corner into two-year-old behaviors. This corner turn is early since he’s still 3 months shy of two. Mostly I like two-year-old behaviors. They can be occasionally frustrating, but they are predictable and not complex. I’ve dealt with them three times before so I know the territory. Unfortunately the behavior that he has picked up most firmly is possesiveness. He defends his possessions aggressively, especially from Gleek whom he views as live-in competition. Typically for his age he defines “possession” as:
Anything I have in my hands
anything I just put down
anything I intended to pick up
anything I like
Two things ALWAYS get defended even if he has to run in from another room to do it, His blanket and his mommy. Which brings me to the anectdote from this morning. Gleek and Patches had a conversation of sorts:
Patches: “My Banket!”
Gleek: “That’s your blanket. This is my blanket!”
Patches: “My Mommy!”
Gleek: “You have to share mommy! You have to SHARE!”
Patches: “My Share!”
Whatever this “Share” thing was, he wanted to make sure that it belonged to him and him alone.
Heh. Pirate never did those things. Goose did the My Mommy! once and that was to!
Pirate does Me first! and has gotten Wen to do it too. There isn’t a lot of possesiveness in the younger girls. Goose seems to have gotten it all. She does the Mine!! thing while Pirate and Wen want to share what they’ve got (and what Goose has too.)
Snicker
How do you keep from falling on the floor laughing at moments like that?
“My Share” is the funniest thing I’ve heard from a pre-two-year-old since… well, since we were telling Madison church was over, time to go home, and she said “Amen!”