As I've mentioned previously, Garrett is now out of the crib and in the big bed. We are slowly making progress with getting him to stay in the bed at naptime, and after about an hour of me going in and out of his room (to "encourage" him to stay in bed) he will fall asleep and sleep for 2 hours or more, so this is a nice change of pace compared to those napless days. We haven't had many issues with getting him to stay in the bed at bedtime, but last night was interesting. He went to sleep just fine, but then off and on all night long he would stand by his door and alternate between hollaring for us and crying. I think he slept there. It was a long night because, while I didn't go in there since he's gotta work through this himself, I also can't sleep through my child crying, as much as I might want to.
Another fun thing that Garrett has started doing involves poop. Over the past couple of weeks, anytime he has dirtied his diaper, he immediately shoves his hand down the back of his diaper to get a handful. Then he runs to me and sticks his poop-filled hand in my face and says "yucky". It's not like I leave him to sit in a dirty diaper all day long, he does this immediately after "the act", giving me no time to change him prior to making a big mess. I am so ready for potty training. I want to wait until he's more adjusted to the big bed before throwing something else new at him, but trust me when I say that I'm counting down the days until I can get him out of diapers.
Garrett has also decided that he is now one of the parents. He has become super bossy lately, not just to us but to anyone and everyone. He shakes his finger in my face (which I really don't do much of, so I'm not sure where that comes from). He also tells us "no sir, no ma'am", but not in the polite way for answering a question, but rather that's his response when we get onto him for throwing his toys, or after he gets a spanking, or just when he feels the urge to boss someone around. Trust me when I say being disrespectful like this always earns him some form of punishment, but it doesn't seem to be changing anything. He's even taken to trying to hit me, mostly in the face! And yesterday he tried to bite Keith a couple of times until Keith wore him out. I don't understand this behavior beyond attributing it to him being 2 years old. We try to be very consistent with discipline, we don't laugh at him one minute and punish him the next (though there are a few times where I'm laughing on the inside as I'm punishing him, because honestly, it's just hard to believe that after only living in this world for 2 short years he's already picked up on a lot of negative things.)
I used to think that parenting a newborn was the most tiresome because you just never get enough sleep and it's so easy to get stressed out over everything because you don't always know why they're crying. I had a "honeymoon" period from around 9 months old until maybe 18 months old where Garrett was a lot of fun. Learning new things, very playful, loving, etc. Now he's just ornery and disobedient. It wears me down sometimes. I just want to say "to heck with this" and let him run wild and tear the house down so long as he leaves me alone. But then what kind of person would he grow up to be? I certainly don't want to raise a child who is destined to be in juvey before he hits puberty. So I just have to keep on keeping on and pray about when will be the right time for us to have another child. I can't imagine adding a newborn to the mix right now. I certainly don't want Garrett to be an only child, but I also don't want to intentionally wear myself down to a nervous breakdown because I had a second child and it was too much for me to handle.
Something else that scares me is that I know everyone is going to respond with, "it doesn't get easier" "4 is worse than 2 any day" or "you're a terrible mother". I want to think there's light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm afraid this tunnel is going to be a long one.
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