Elliot and the terrible twos

I can tell at this point Elliot's terrible 2s are not going to be that terrible. I am not saying that Elliot doesn't have moments of breaking down, but his tantrums are so far and inbetween it seems like it is mostly going to skip us.

I have been thinking and thinking lately why this might be the case and have come up with a couple explanations. The first is personality. Elliot is just more of a laid back kid and eager to please. He doesn't seem to take a stand as much as Erik, but he definitely knows about to stick up for himself.

The next reason is food. When Erik was two he almost never ate. He lived on crackers, string cheese and yogurt and we struggled for every bite. I have a theory that Erik was cranky a lot because he was hungry and he refused to eat. Hindsight on that one that I can't prove anyway. With Elliot he pretty much eats everything, even the occasional vegetable and lets me know if he is hungry. If I give him two choices of food he will always pick one of those choices and not go hungry so we never have tantrums because he is low blood sugar.

The last reason is vocabulary. Elliot was an early talker, but he is talking in full sentences and multiple sentences. He can very clearly tell me what he wants and express his needs and there are very few times when his vocabulary hinders him which is a pretty big deal in two year old land.

So with these three major factors I think Elliot's second year might be a little bit easier than Erik was. Add to it a constant play companion in Erik and you have yourself a pretty low key two year old.