Forever Twos

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Forever Twos

We have been parenting two-year-olds for 3 1/2 years. 

Most parents get to get THROUGH the two-year-old stage and into the threenage stage and then the eff you fours and then come out the other side with kids who can wipe their own butts and not have a meltdown about having taken off their own sock. But we just keep having two-year-olds. 

My husband and I are foster parents. That doesn’t explain why the stars aligned to give us two-year-olds for three years, it just explains the mechanics of how it’s even possible to spend three plus years with this charming, literal, neurotic stage of childhood without having had four kids of our own. 

If you don’t have a good sense of humor, two-year-olds can drown you in frustration, poop, and uneaten food that they specifically asked for. Two-year-olds could exasperate Mother Theresa in a heartbeat. It’s a proven fact.*

But there’s a lot of humor associated with raising two-year-olds too. And frankly any age kids. That’s the one thing I didn’t expect about parenting. I expected the vomit, tears, untied shoes, picky eating, hair-pulling frustration, but I didn’t expect the sheer joyous hilarity of kids. 

Right now we have a “good one.” Truly, as much as any two-and-a-half-year-old can be a good kid, this one is, aside from the occasional (daily) mischief like the photos below. Tiny is whip smart, funny as hell, and understands way more than we sometimes want her to. 

Tiny has been with us since April. She came to us because she was failure to thrive and Seth (who is in nursing school) and I specialize in kids with medical issues. She spoke not a word of English in April, and now is talking circles around our expectations on a daily basis. She’s terrified of frogs (“water ribbits”), is addicted to Shopkins, loves to stand on things to be taller (she’s called “Tiny” on here for a reason) and sing into things like a microphone. She has more shoes than I do and changes them multiple times a day. I could go on and on endlessly about her charms.

So often people hopefully ask me if we will get to “keep” this one, especially because it’s apparent I’m head over heels in love with this little sprout. But remember when I mentioned Tiny understands more than we sometimes want her to? Yeah, here’s the thing. She has a Mama, two older sisters, and two older brothers whom she loves fiercely. She talks about them and has pretend phone calls with them many times a day. She carries around a laminated photo of them, and tells anyone who will listen what their names are. She sobs inconsolably after real phone calls and visits. She loves her family and knows they are where she “belongs.”

She loves us pretty fiercely too. After all, when she came to us she was a sick, sick baby who was clinging to life out of sheer cussed determination. She’s come out the other side as a healthy thriving little creature who spends her days learning the alphabet already, dancing her own special dance, and generally being a happy silly well-loved little being. There’s tons of adoring attention in our house, and all the kinds of stimulation she needs. She is happy here. But she belongs elsewhere and she’s painfully aware of that. She’s Asian and comes from a rich cultural heritage my husband and I can try to teach her a bit about, but can’t recreate for her. She is already missing out on speaking the language her family speaks at home because try as I might, her language’s alphabet alone eludes me.

I don’t know what will happen with this case. Foster care is maddening in that you never know what will happen in the “system” and the courts. Her Mama has a lot on her plate and I don’t know if she can do all she needs to to get her beloved baby back. If she doesn’t, it will be a tragedy that Tiny will feel her whole life, even while growing up with us in a happy healthy home. If her Mama does get her back, Tiny will miss us for a long time and will miss out on some important opportunities in life. There’s no “right” answer, although I think going home is probably the right-er option so long as it can happen safely. My god, the heartbreak we will go through!

So what can we do while we wait to see what will happen? We try to focus on the now, where Tiny is currently bossing Seth as he rebuilds our upstairs bathroom, while doing her little classic Tiny dance. We pull out our hair over potty training frustrations, read her bilingual books in English, teach her colors (her favorite is purple), and love on her while we can.

In short, we focus on enjoying age two for a blessed little while longer.

*My husband informs me Mother Theresa never actually said any such thing, but I don’t believe it. If she didn’t say it loudly enough for it to be recorded for posterity, I’ll swear she muttered it under her breath.

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