Clark the Shark and His Textbook Twos

Clark the Shark

Clark has been pulling some real great stunts lately. And by “real great” I mean spectacular displays of red hot anger. It’s been shorts weather off and on here for awhile, but I haven’t put the boys in shorts that often because when I put them on Clark he explodes in senseless rage. You see, he wants them to be pants. (Duh!) He tugs and yanks on them maniacally to try to stretch them into pants. He throws his head back, he screams, he kicks, he yells things like, “no!” or “pants!” or worse, “hurts! hurts!” My poor fragile Clarky must have done some textbook reading on child development and taken notes, because he is Two with a capital T lately.

Other things that have elicited gigantic meltdowns for Clark this past week:

Identical Blankets: I covered Cal up with the exact same matching comforter that I then covered Clark up with. Clark yelled “other one!” repeatedly in between giant sobs and screams and kicking that lasted 20 minutes and really jacked up bedtime and any semblance of composure I had struggled to make stretch the whole day.

Sandals: Clearly evil in intention, The Sandal does the unthinkable…that’s right. It separates the big toe from the second-to-biggest toe. Really pisses Clark off. He does the whole tugging and screaming and stomping routine that he pulls with the shorts, topped off by high-pitch wailing and sweating. Oh, wait, that’s me sweating.

The Wrong Cup: Handing Clark’s cup to Calvin or vice versa usually sets off some serious shock waves until the swap is made. It even made Brian pull the car over last week, because I wasn’t there to figure out what was wrong while he kept the van on the road, and Clark had flipped his Two switch into full gear.

Putting Scratchy Cat The Wrong Way: Obviously Scratchy Cat needs to be snuggled in the blanket gazing AT Clark when he is ready to go to sleep, rather than nonchalantly looking at the crib bars. And obviously Clark can’t move Scratchy himself!

Oh You Did NOT Give Me The Un-Blue Bowl: The only acceptable bowl color for Clark is blue.

Clark’s Turn: The length and intensity of the scream is directly proportionate with the blue-ness, and awesomeness of the toy being grabbed at with two sets of grubby hands.  They then yell in the third person, “Clark’s turn!” and “Calvin’s turn!”

Baby sounds: Clark has a broad vocabulary. But he gets in his baby mood, like he did this morning, and refuses to say words or make signs to say what he wants. I usually know what he wants but I will not respond to grunts and whines and screams from a child who can politely articulate what he so desperately needs. There were flying strawberries and a case of upside-down-on-the-carpet toast this morning while he flung his body around wanting me to pour him juice without saying or signing please or even saying juice.

Cal Being Charming

What’s nice about this is that Cal has been a perfect little angel despite Clark’s week of raging episodes. I think I’d rather they spread out the Two-ness, so I can appreciate the non-ranting child, than give me a double dose, but who knows. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of double doses as well.


For now I can just will myself out of a situation by thinking that even though is unbelievably nightmarish, and makes me want to stab myself, it will make great blog material once the silence comes. And it always comes. And when it does it is not unlike rich dark chocolate in all its sweetness and glory.