The "terrible twos" are pretty damn funny

I can't tell you how many times recently I've heard Red yell from the other room, "Nooooooo! Beeeeeeeeea!" when our dog, Bea, wasn't anywhere near him. You see, the recent explosion in his vocabulary has been accompanied by his realization that language can be used to great effect to lie, mislead, or otherwise shade the truth about the various exploits of a two-year-old.

Red has thus taken to blaming everything on Bea, especially when he gets embarrassed at his clumsiness getting the better of him. We parents play into this, of course, because Bea does regularly bowl him over, step on him, sit on him, or pin him to the sofa while licking his face. So we have to check it out whenever our child is in distress, whether legitimate or feigned. 

But I hardly mind being manipulated by a toddler now and then. It is just so damn cute. Like when Red throws tantrums over absolutely nothing, like, say, not being able to see the moon because it's cloudy. Something as minor as that will produce an inconsolable child, head back, eyes closed, wailing as though he'd just had a limb removed. 

What can I say? Hilarious.

We try not to laugh too hard when he gets really mad at something, either, because he is just so SERIOUS about it. But again, hilarious. I mean, you have to laugh when your son is livid at his pasta for not behaving in a sufficiently noodly manner. 

Red has always been an unusually serious kid. For example, here he is playing with a stuffed leopard at three months:

And here he is at his birthday party last weekend:

Still pretty serious. It's not that he isn't having fun, it's just that this is a kid who has always taken himself exceptionally seriously at all times. 

Now that he has also developed something of a usable vocabulary and a toddler's desire for total self-sufficiency, any efforts to help him do anything are met with a forceful "No! Baby!"

Getting into the car? "No! Baby!"

Sticking the bubble wand back in the bottle? "No! Baby!"

Setting a match to firewood? "No! Baby!"

It's fun seeing one's child turn into a real person, with all of personhood's accompanying idiosyncrasies, neuroses, and tics. It is especially enjoyable when the so-called "terrible twos" are such a constant source of parental amusement. 

I mean, you can't really get mad about this stuff, so you might as well laugh. And boy, does he hate it when we do that...