Oh Amelia!

A few months back Amelia decided to go through a phase of being generally dissatisfied with the world outside of her immediate family. Strangers were not allowed to look in her general direction and when sweet little children at the park ventured near her she would stare them down and growl. This phase lasted entirely too long. I thought I might lose my mind completely. Here is photo documentation of it during her second birthday:

This is Amelia acting outraged over the idea of people singing happy birthday to her

This is the face she made when other people dared to have pieces of her cake:

The theme of that day was: it's my party and I will cry if I want to. Luckily for me, because anything is better then a two year old who acts like a crotchety 80 year old woman, that phase has been replaced with the demanding phase. This new phase involves A LOT of screaming. Car rides are the worst. If Amelia drops something in the backseat while I am driving she will scream "get it, get it, GET IT!!!" She will continue screaming until we have gotten to our destination and she is able to pick up whatever it is she has dropped. Also she likes to demand impossible objects while we are driving, like lollipops, her robot backpack which is at home in her bedroom, or cereal. I calmly explain that those things are unavailable on the freeway. Sometimes simple explanations work but mostly I hear "lollipop. Please. Mommy." Over and over again for the next 15 minutes.

Dinner time is the worst. After I have sat down and am in the process of scarfing down my food Amelia will say "princess cup please!" "Dip please, Dora plate please, fork, spoon, napkin." It is ridiculous but at least she uses her manners!! Then there is the battle over the TV. If I am watching TV she will demand to watch Dora, by demand I mean that she will continue to say "Dora! Dora, DORA!" She will continue to say this until I physically pick her up and place her on the naughty step. Then she will cry forever and ask to watch blues clues. My girl has a strong will. Also, she will repeat things continuously until being acknowledged. "My daddies home, my daddies home, look, mom, daddy's home." If I don not acknowledge the fact that Daddy is indeed home she will just continue saying that same phrase over and over and over. The girl is an attention monger!! Andrew and Jacob have become feed up with it. Especially Jake who gets the grunt of her treatment. IF he dares lay a finger or elbow on her car seat he will hear about it through her shrieks of protest "my seat, no touch!"

Within the last few days I have begun project "no more screaming." This entails a ridiculous amount of time outs. Seriously, it's like one every half an hour. At first it was like every ten minutes. When the screaming begins I do not acknowledge her in the least. I just pick her up and sit her down on the step until she is finished ranting. This has served to be troublesome during her infamous car tirades; her most favorite screaming locale. Through trial and error I have learned to simply turn the radio up (yes, I know that this is parenting in its finest form!)

Here is hoping that the demanding phase will not morph into anything more menacing. I am keeping my fingers crossed!