"12 months. That's a really fun age."

Lately, I've been having this conversation a lot.

Parent with older child: Your daughter is really cute. How old?

Me: Oh, she's a little over a year.

Parent with older child: 12 months. That's a really fun age. Enjoy this time, while you can...

But with their eyes, they say: She may be snuggly now, but it's all down hill from here. One day soon you'll wake up and meet a screaming, tantrum-throwing monster trapped in the body of your daughter. It's not too late, though. No one gave me this warning. You can still run away! Before it's too late. Before your hair turns grey and your walls are covered in crayon!

It's a little disconcerting, frankly. Could the coming 'terrible twos' really be that bad? Does the change happen overnight or are there any warning signs?

I am starting to notice that Sydney likes to say "No no no." Not "No." But three times the "no". Could the nightmare already be starting?

Parents with older children nod in the background

It's a bit like in those zombie movies. The survivors are all trapped in a house. And the survivors know, that if one of the millions of zombies hovering outside can manage to get in and bite one of them, that the victim will turn into a zombie too. And then, inevitably, one of the survivors gets bitten, but is afraid of telling the others, and so he hides it.

But the audience knows. The audience knows that all too soon, this one will be turned into a destructive automaton.

"Maybe", thinks the soon-to-be-zombie, "I'll be different."

Somehow, I think I'll have a say in whether my daughter turns into a monster. "Our daughter will be different," I think to myself. "She's incredibly snuggly and loving now. And, she's had a great upbringing, lots of love, good genetics, etc."

Which I'm sure, is what all of the other parents thought, when they heard about the coming terrible twos.

Denial. It's such a fantastic tool for getting us to move into what's ahead.

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