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Rose is exactly 2½.


What's that like, you ask? It's backwards pants, mismatched shoes, “I've fallen and I can't get up" puddles of despair,and then presto change-o: irrepressible glee over a handful of raisins.


I can't help but muse about what life would be like if we adults still harbored a little “two" in us. We'd go to a
party, see our friend, run over for a hug and then snatch her chicken satay skewer. Maybe we'd apologize; maybe we'd
push her down. Next we'd stand under the sign reading “no nudity" and tug off our clothes while making sure everyone is
watching.


Rose is such a tween, at 2½. She's no longer on the floor with the lumpy babies marinating in their own drool; but like
a preteen who plans a wild adventure then remembers she has to ask her mom to drive, Rose needs a lot of help she
doesn't want.


This makes for tricky times, like when Rose insists on getting in her car seat and buckling up by herself. Great!
Except, whoops, she can't; and when I approach to help, she yowls as if I'm baring pliers to pull her tiny teeth out.

I'm sure there's something creative and Montessori-like I could say to her, disarming the two-ness that keeps us
stranded in the cold driveway. But the last power struggle, the one over the shoes, three minutes earlier, has chipped
away at my polish.


I breathe and pace, breathe and pace until Rose finally whines accusingly “I can't dooooo it," as if I had set her up
all along.


Poor Rose. I know she's just trying to figure things out, like “if I got Col's muffin by hitting him and snatching it,will that work with my friend Iris?"


It's a valid question, when many of life's rules must seem so arbitrary (why don't we eat box
elder bugs?). Rose's friend Chloe says in a fit of toddler indecision “I waaaant that cheese. No, I caaaan't want that
cheese." I'm sure that's how it feels: the pink hiking boots they loved yesterday? Can't be loved today.


Two is really like living with a very short comedian. Like how Rose will peer into her car seat, screw her face up and
ask, “what all dese crumbs in dere?" Or how she'll solemnly hand me a plastic bag containing one rubber band and
instruct “you put dis up high so Coley don't get it."


Sometimes I don't even know how to answer her bizzaro questions, like when she opens a kitchen drawer, points to the
rolling pin and asks, “what dat rolling pin called?"


But we hardly take Rose seriously - that's how it is with the second. When Col was all jacked up on being 2, I was full
of “strategies." When Rose stubbornly sweeps the walls with her small broom, and you can hear the piped-in toddler
music crooning “I did it myyyy way," we just shrug and state the obvious: “She's 2."


Rachel Turiel's column runs the
first and third Sunday. Reach her at sanjuandrive@frontier.net
Check out her blog at 6512andgrowing.wordpress.com