Perfectly Two and a Half

This little girl of mine is just so very two and a half right now. Contrary, strong willed, determined, independent. She is bright and inquisitive, interested in everything, and absorbing it all like a sponge. I find myself frustrated by her to the point I feel my head is about to explode, and then she wraps her tiny arms around me and tells me she loves me and melts my heart. She makes me laugh every single day, sometimes it is her very naughtiness that causes me to laugh and so I have to turn my head. Sometimes it is just what she says and does as she goes about her day. She is teetering on the brink of baby and child. Sometimes she seems like such a baby to me still, and at other times I am surprised to realize she is really becoming more of a preschooler, keeping up with her sister in most things. She is always so completely her own self, so much spunk in such a tiny body that it can't be contained.

Last week we went to the dollar store for tissue paper. Violet spotted packages of plastic Easter eggs and decided we needed them. I kept telling her we were not buying those. In the end she stood next to me in line with them firmly in her clutches, refusing to set them down. "Our family needs these" she reasoned with me "This is important for us to buy. They are beautiful and we can't leave them here. They will make us so happy." Because they were only a dollar and I was tired and just couldn't stand the thought of a tantrum in the store, struggle to get her in her carseat, and screaming all the way home, I bought them. And guess what? She was right. That was an important purchase, our family did need them and they did make us happy because after carrying them around like a doll in her arms as we finished our errands she opened the package up at home and my girls spent the next three days playing happily and peacefully with them. They took turns hiding the eggs for each other and having egg hunts around the house. They got out their basket and filled it with the eggs they found and then did it again and again. A dollar well spent.

But a few days after that we went to Target for toilet paper and I let the girls try on Easter shoes just for fun. I didn't realize it at the time, but the ladies underwear department was right across from the children's shoe department. As we were leaving Violet spotted some bins with things in them and went over to inspect. I was calling her, reminding her that she could only be out of the carriage if she listened and stayed with me, but she was being very two and a half and ignored me while she carefully selected an object from the bin. She came running toward me, all smiles and happiness telling me she picked the most beautiful one and she wanted to bring it home. I told her we were only buying toilet paper today, she told me she needed this thing, and we went back and forth for a bit until I finally decided to just take it from her and put it back. I had to wrestle the object from her fierce grip, as she screamed at the top of her lungs, feeling very annoyed and ridiculous in the middle of the store with my out of control toddler  and regretting that I ever let her out of the carriage. When I finally got the damn thing out of her hands I was able to see what it actually was. It was a leopard print thong with hot pink lace trim. I stood in the middle of Target and wrestled a hot pink and leopard print thong out of my two year old's hands while she screamed "No! It's so beautiful! It's my most beautiful thing in the world! I need that thing!" Clearly it was an over-site on the part of Target to put a bin of brightly colored thongs in bins down at toddler level right across from the toddler shoes. But this is how our days go, here in the middle of two and a half. It is never, ever boring, always interesting, often exciting, and very sweet. She is something else, this two year old of mine.