MARK MY WORD: PARENTS TACKLE TERROR OF THE TERRIBLE TWOS

At our house, 1998 is starting out with a bang.

You wouldn't want to store nuclear missiles in our home; they just might go off.

That's because our youngest daughter, Bailey, is now 2 years old. She reached that age in early December and within days she underwent a personality change.

No matter how many kids you have raised, you're never prepared for the Terrible Twos.

At an earlier age, they are adorable and agreeable.

Once they turn 2, they start whining and carrying on if they don't get to drink out of the purple cup or scrawl graffiti on the kitchen walls with magic markers.

Pretty soon, your whole house has been turned into a tiny terrorist zone. You're tempted to call the cops and enlist the aid of a hostage negotiator.

After all, as a parent, you'd like to be released from this hostage hotel.

But, of course, you know that won't work. You have to endure months of this stuff with parental patience or at least a set of ear plugs.

The good news for parents is that eventually children turn 3 and you forget all about the Terrible Twos.

But for now, Joni and I are trapped in Year Two.

It's not that Bailey is a bad child. It's just that she has finally learned how to be stubborn and just say "no."

She says it almost as forcefully as I say it. But then you can't equate dads to 2-year-olds. We know how to work the remote control.

As a second child, Bailey doesn't announce her plans in advance like her sister, Becca. She just does it.

The other day, Bailey managed to grab a whole roll of paper towels. By the time I discovered it, she had unrolled it, blazing a trail of paper towels from room to room.

It was easy to find her. I just followed the paper trail. If politicians did this sort of stuff, they'd never get away with anything.

Bailey can be helpful too, only in a 2-year-old way that's comparable to handing matches to an arsonist.

Bailey loves to clean up spills. The other day, I watched her deliberately spill ice cream on the kitchen table and then proceed to clean it up with a paper towel.

She repeated the process again for good measure. Naturally, she howled when I removed the bowl of ice cream rather than risk a continuing tidal wave of spills.

Of course, Becca still has the ability to spill things, and she's approaching age 6. But she doesn't enjoy cleaning things up as much as Bailey.

At age 2, Bailey has become adept at climbing all over her parents, the couch, chairs and just about anything else that is taller than she is.

At this rate, she'll be a mountain climber by the time she is 4.

There is nothing quite like trying to read a book to a 2-year-old as the child attempts to gain a foothold on your neck with the obvious intention of reaching the summit, which in this case is your head, before bedtime.

My advice: wear a helmet when you're reading that bedtime story.

Fortunately for us, Bailey isn't a constant climber. She will sit still for the purple dinosaur.

For months, I thought the creature was extinct. But I was wrong. Barney is back, much to Bailey's delight.

The difficulty for parents is that it is tough to compete with a singing purple dinosaur unless, of course, you're holding a roll of paper towels and plenty of ice cream.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.