The 13 steps of the 'Terrible Twos' ~ January 21, 1988

David Heiller

There are 13 steps to our upstairs. I actually counted them for the first time tonight, after six and a half years of living here.

The reason I counted them is that I just walked down them for the fifth time in the last hour. I’ve been trying to match wits with a two-year-old girl.

“Not another column about that kid of yours?” you moan. Yes, one more. But it’s not really about Malika. It’s about universal, ever changing growth and development, the human psychological phenomenon of putting a two-year-old to bed.

Sleeping beauties, but not that night, I guess.

I had put the kids to bed about 7:30 this Monday evening. They lay with me in Noah’s bed for a minute, then I separated them into their own rooms. There’s no door between their rooms, so I put a gate in place. It’s a gate that is made to keep toddlers out of rooms they shouldn’t be in.

The design is perfect except for the barbed wire they forgot to string across the top. Toddlers look upon such gates the way mountain climbers look at the north face of the Eiger. The way Dutch Jones looks at a bear. The way Marvin Johnson looks at a post office.

I trudged down those 13 steps, after leaving the lights on in both kids’ rooms. They had their books, and I thought maybe Malika would read herself to sleep. Soon the floor was creaking above me. Malika was in our bedroom, in our bed. I walked upstairs and put her back in her bed, with a warning that the light would go out if she got out of her bed again.

Things seemed to be fine for a minute, so I went outside to bring in a load of firewood. As I dumped the wood in the box, I could sense another person downstairs. I peeked into the living room. Malika stood behind the rocking chair, looking at me.

“I had to get my kiki,” she explained, showing me her blanket.

I herded her toward the stairs.

Sleep reading.

“I have to go poop, Dad” she said as we passed the bathroom.

“You just went poop,” I said. That was true enough, just a half hour earlier.

“I have to go poop, Dad,” she insisted.

“All right,^” I said. ^“But hurry up.” I was angry by now. My right ear ached from an infection. I still had my hat and gloves on from the wood hauling, and here I was standing in the bathroom with a two-year-old who claimed to have to empty her bowels for the second time in 30 minutes.

“Dog-gone it, Malika,” I started, as she stared at me from her perch. ^“Now hurry up. First you have to go potty, then you have to go again, and now you just sit there. I have a sore ear, and I^’ve got work to do tonight, and I’m angry with you, so go potty.”

“What, Dad?” she asked.

My speech has been wasted. I was glad there was no adult in the house to hear it.

“I said go potty,” I repeated.

^“Pee or poop, Dad?” she asked.

“I don’t care, you’re the one that has to go, not me,” I yelled.

Malika climbed off the potty, with nothing to show for her effort except an irate father.

Ms. Malika, full of the dickens.
Light of her daddy's eyes.

I left her upstairs, where she navigated her Matterhorn gate two times into Noah’s room. Noah hid under the covers. Even he had had enough. Finally I gave her a swat on the butt, turned off the lights, and headed down the 13 steps.

Malika started crying. ^“Lay with me owie minute,” she said between sobs. “Lay with me owie minute.”

“All right, I^’ll lay with you one minute.” I walked back upstairs. Malika hugged her blanket, and hugged me, as I lay down and ran my fingers through her hair. It was 8:30 now. She had finally run out of steam, and I took my last trip down the 13 steps for the night.

I remember when Noah was Mollie’s age, how he wouldn’t listen or behave. Nearly every parent can recount their Waterloos of the Terrible Twos. But Noah changed, in spite of all our attempts at early bedtime and his multiple trips to the potty. He just plain changed, through no effort on our part or his. Now, at age four and a half, for the most part he listens and understands and behaves.

Sometimes, when young parents belly-ache about things their kids do, older people get a wistful look in their eyes. “They’ll be grown up before you know it,” they say. I think I know how they feel. Being a parent is an on-going experience, just like growing up. Once a kid is grown, they’re grown. Having kids is hard work, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun too. Which is why I write columns like this.

Malika will change too. Once she leaves these Terrible Twos, she’ll leave them for good, since we won’t be having any more children. They’ll even be gone from this column, faithful readers.

Then those 13 steps won’t mean as much as they did tonight.

I can’t wait.