I had completely forgotten how the term “terrible twos” is a misnomer, as it actually starts way earlier. Way. Or maybe it just feels that way because when you’re deep in the throes of it, a few months is a damn long time.

Or perhaps, skipping the terrible twos and heading right to bershon.

Sage is now creeping up on 23 months (is it possible?) and, like her sister, has decided to enter the wonderful world of dog-poking, cat-jabbing, cereal-flinging, tantrum-throwing, block tower-wrecking, couch-scribbling, mommy-torturing fun.

Of course unlike her sister at this age, Sage has a sibling whose hair she can pull too. So that’s excellent.

I swear I never thought I’d utter phrases (generally yelled from another room) like DO I HAVE TO SEPARATE YOU TWO? And STOP BITING YOUR SISTER. And I AM DRAWING AN INVISIBLE LINE BETWEEN YOU AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO CROSS IT.

I sound just like a bad Bill Cosby routine from the 80s and I kind of resent it. Just once I would like to be like, IF YOU TWO KEEPING HUGGING EACH OTHER AND BEING NICE TO EACH OTHER ALL DAY I WILL HAVE TO COME IN THERE AND MAKE YOU EAT DESSERT!

It could happen.

Indeed Sage is finding plenty of fun ways to keep us entertained even when she’s not in the room with Thalia. Nother binkieeeeee! she screeches every night. Two binkies. She needs two now. Can’t sleep with just one – oh no, that would be akin to putting her to sleep on a bed of barbed wire with a dog poop pillow. The two binkie thing is particularly awesome considering the fact that we can hardly ever keep track of the first one. If there is a sock monster which steals your footwear from the dryer, then we have its cousin, the binkie monster, which chews up pacifiers in the night.

We know it’s not about second binkies. It’s all about the insatiable id of the nearly two year-old.

Sage’s own favorite expression these days is ME TOOOO! Usually repeated and with great consistency in rhythm and tone (Me toooo Me toooo me toooo Me tooo) until we agree to do for her whatever it is we just did for her big sister. It could be giving her a cookie. It could be giving her a time out. Really, it doesn’t matter as long as she does it toooo. Otherwise – pouting. Tears. Screaming.

Her next favorite word is nowwwwww, as in BINKIE NOWWWWWWW. We are trying very hard to replace it with please.

Also, pertinent to nothing, she likes to scour the apartment for things to put on her head.

At least under a colander I can’t see her snarling at me.