Terrible Twos

I understand now why they call it the Terrible Twos.  I used to think it was because children of this age are frustrated with their lack of communication skills.  They want to do everything themselves, and are only capable of doing half what they want.  Tantrums ensue.  This makes sense to me, except this starts around 18 months, and ends about 2.5.  Hardly "terrible twos."  Then I thought "well, terrible 1.5-2.5s" doesn't have the same ring to it, so whoever coined the phrase just rounded. But recently, the REAL reason it's called "The Terrible Twos" has dawned on me.

A 2-year-old NEVER SHUTS UP.  My daughter and I have conversations like this:

Lauren: Mom, you're watching Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse, Mom. Mom, Mickey Mouse.  Mom, you're watching Mickey Mouse.  Mom watching Mickey Mouse? Look mom, Mickey Mouse.  Mom, you're watching Mickey Mouse.  Mom? Mom, mom. mom. mom. Mom? 

Me: "OMFG WHAT DO YOU WANT, CHILD?!" 

Lauren: "You're watching Mickey Mouse, look."

And don't think I ignored her for five minutes or anything, because she managed to get out that whole Wall of Text in about 7 seconds.

My 4-year-old has some developmental delays going on, and he's on roughly the same verbal level at my 2-year-old.  His conversations go like this:

"Mom?" 

"Yes, Luke?" 

"I need.... uh.... um... mom?" 

*waits for him to continue* 

"Mom? mom. mom. mom. MOM.  Hello! Mom?" 

"Yes, Luke?" 

"I want... um... a sippy."

I feel like he has a touch of OCD in that little brain of his, since he cannot start in the middle on a conversation, or even the middle of a line in a conversation. And not only MUST he start over, but I must verbally acknowledge his Moming before he will continue with the line of speech.  And worse yet, Lauren has picked up on this little quirk, and she will not continue speaking until she is verbally acknowledged as well.

Aside from the fact that she never stops talking, she's gone from independent to clingy practically overnight.  My child who used to play by herself willingly now wants me to interact with her every waking second of the day (and as you may have read in the co-sleeping post yesterday, every NOT waking moment as well).  Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my children.  I'm not usually wishing to lock them in a vault and ignore them (maybe at 3am when she's suction cupped to my side), but if I have to read Cat in the Hat one more time, I might have a stroke.

No, the Terrible Twos have NOTHING to do with tantrums.