Behavior issues

Wow, a lot has been going on since my last post. Emily and Savannah are now 20.5 months old and the "terrible two's" behavior is surfacing almost daily now. Get ready for some mommy venting! My main struggle right now is with the biting behavior--mostly from Emily. She's gone from biting out of extreme frustration to biting just for the fun of it. So aggravating for me and sadly for Savannah it turns out to be a painful experience. I don't know why Emily has been biting Savannah so much lately. For the past several weeks it's been very frequent. They both are getting 4 new teeth (2 top, 2 bottom) and so I thought that might have something to do with it, but now that the teeth are in the biting still is continuing and getting worse. Emily will just walk up to Savannah sometimes and out of the blue just take a big bite out of her arm, face, or back. Poor Savannah then cries and runs to me for comfort, all while Emily is LAUGHING! The laughing increases as I try to correct her behavior with a stern "No biting! Biting hurts!" and then often she'll try to bite again, or begin to hit Savannah or me.

This past week has been the worst so far with the tantrums and biting, hitting, kicking, and now throwing toys/books at me or the other sibling. Again...most of it coming from Emily. Savannah seems to give me the most struggle on the changing table during diaper changes and clothing changes, and then when it's time to brush teeth. I get quite a work out in the mornings between those events because I literally have to wrestle with Savannah just to get those tasks accomplished. You add that frustrating experience to 5 minutes later when Emily has chosen to be the "evil" twin and I'm about ready to resign from motherhood for the day. No such luck...no babysitters available ;).

I am going to a workshop tonight through the Parents As Teachers program and I am hoping they can help me resolve the negative behavior. I've found myself spanking Emily more often than I ever planned to have to do...originally I was going the no spanking route until she kicked up the biting a few notches. Now that she's biting me and biting Savannah until she's bruised up and down both arms I thought I need to do something else. Just the verbal reprimand is not working and often seems to challenge Emily to do more of the behavior I don't want, and often at Savannah's expense. Is it a jealously issue? This week I can hardly read of book without it turning into a fight between the two girls over sitting on my lap. Neither girl wants the other one sitting in my lap at the same time. I guess they are craving the individual time? That's the hardest part about raising twins. I never feel like I can give them the individual time they are needing, often because the situation is just not realistic during the day and for some odd reason they won't allow individual time with Seth and seem to gravitate to me when he is home much of the time.

Today I feel like I'm failing in the behavior management area. I just don't know what to do. I don't like spanking my girls and I would like to find a better way of getting a behavior to stop. For those of you out there who believe in the power of prayer, I'd really appreciate if you could send a prayer up for me.

Okay, enough venting. On to more positive happenings. Recently I got to plant some flowers in my flower beds and pots on the patio. I bought two little duck and snail watering cans for the girls so they could help water the plants. They really enjoy getting to do that. It is so cute to watch. So, yesterday while we were watering the plants Emily decided that the dirt looked pretty interesting. So interesting that she took a big handful of dirt and put it in her mouth and started eating it. Yuck! I freaked out because it was potting soil and probably had some type of Miracle Grow fertilizer in it. So we quickly brought her inside, tried to wash her mouth off and washed her hands. This made her really mad of course...hopefully she didn't actually like the taste of the dirt and won't do it again.

Another cute thing they are doing is talking to each other, with purpose. Not just babbling or imitating, actually conversing a little. Usually in a bossy way, but definitely different than a few months ago. They love to sing and sing several times a day, usually Old Mac Donald, ABC, and Jesus Loves Me, and Ring around the Rosy. Sometimes they'll sing a song that we just cannot figure out the words--so maybe they made it up on their own.

Okay, I hear total silence so that probably means they are into something they shouldn't be into...better go see what's going on.