Welcome to toddlerhood...

In the last two weeks Andy and I have seen a drastic change in our little man. He's still our little man but he's as independent as ever and testing the boundaries with every day that passes. He gets frustrated if you tell him no, when you try and remove him from a situation he's been known to throw his arms in the air and slide to the floor like a snake, and if we close an appliance (the dishwasher, the fridge, etc.) before he is "finished" with it then you might hear a defiant squawk erupt from his pint sized mouth.

I've pondered this, AG's behavior, for about a week or so now and what our game plan should be to handle this new stage. Here are a few of my thoughts...

Most toddlers begin exhibiting signs of "the terrible twos" around 15 months and it hits the full blown stage around 18 months till they are about 3 years of age. And most toddlers begin walking around their first birthday or within the next few months of their birthday. Once they begin walking it takes them a couple of months to really walk confidently and at a more natural pace/stride. This new found confidence opens up a world of independence. Usually around the time they have mastered walking they begin exhibiting signs of the terrible twos. Well in our case AG began walking shortly after he was 10 months. Since then he has become a confident walker and has mastered walking over objects, carrying multiple things at once, etc. In my opinion his early found independence has led us in to early toddlerhood. Not a bad thing--just means that Andy and I have spent a lot of time discussing behavior and discipline in the last week. :)

In the beginning I think it caught me off guard because he's only 13 months old. And then I was reminded about all those EDU classes and that every child is different. Each having a unique learning style and abilities. And that led me to my theory of AG hitting toddlerhood a little earlier. Now granted he is not completely in full blown toddlerhood, yet, because his vocabulary is still developing (and his retaliation methods are still simple) but we have definitely crossed over the great divide and no longer have a "baby". He's beginning to flex his muscles and test the waters to see what is acceptable. We are in the middle of a learning curve no doubt about it.

This week I started reading Dare to Discipline. Now this is not my first book on disciplining children because I did read several for my undergrad but it is my first with my own child. When Andy and I talked about our future family and our roles within our household when we were first married I would draw upon my teaching experience. Managing a household is quite similar to managing a classroom. And I've seen that first hand over the last few years and even more so in this last year with having a child. So why read another book? Why, because while I appreciate the theories taught in my college texts (and I do pull from that knowledge in our daily routine) I desire to read texts on rearing children from a biblical perspective too. I am sure this is the first of many that I will read over the years.

My very wise father once told me something that has always stuck with me...they raised us to be adults. When people would ask him (or my mom) about how to raise kids my dad would smile and say, "we aren't raising them to be kids. We are raising them to be adults." Adults who when they leave the nest have all the tools necessary to be successful all they have to do is apply them. We no longer have a baby. We have a child who we are starting to lay the foundation within for him to one day be an adult with all the tools necessary to be successful. It will have its ups and downs from this point on. Andy and I don't have it all figured out but as a team we will be able to figure it out together. And in the end I'm confident that we'll have given our children all the tools they need to be successful.