She’s Turned Into a 2-Year-Old

And I am sad about it. I’ve told y’all numerous times that the Little One is the sweetest child on the face of the earth. Well, that seems to be changing. And I am very sad about it.

She turned 2 a few weeks ago and suddenly she isn’t so sweet. She has learned the wonders of the word, “NO!” She is starting to get picky about what she eats. And she is finally starting to fight back when the Big One starts picking on her.

Now the defending herself thing is fine. We’ve been warning the Big One that she should be teaching the Little One how to hug and be nice instead of hitting and stealing toys. But she didn’t listen so well. The Little One has figured it out.

If the Big One has a toy or book that the Little One wants, the Little One has taken ripping out chunks of hair. She just walks up to the Big One, grabs a handful of hair and yanks as hard as she can.

It’s driving me crazy. It’s just plain mean and it hurts.

I’ve tried time-out, I’ve tried explaining that it hurts and it’s not nice to hurt. I’ve put her in her room. I’ve resorted to a spank on the bottom. I even tried pulling her own hair to show her how it feels (great mom, huh?). Nothing seems to get through to her. She still pulls the Big One’s hair.

Anyone have a tried and true method to stop the hair pulling? I know this is just the very beginning of the sibling fighting. I remember the knock down drag-out fights my sister and I got into. But I’d really like to minimize it as much as possible!