I meant to post these on Monday, but S2 decided to upstage me 🙂
Just think: next year, we’ll have 2 monkeys prancing around.
Trick or treating
Making spooky pop-corn hands
Daddy’s serious, scary and… uhmn… constipated face 🙂
Break my heart, why don’t you?
Mommy quilt is a wonderous thing… even when you’re not the one in the wrong.
Remember when I said that G’s favorite word these days is “No!”? Well, he’s pushing boundaries as much as possible. Today, P and I needed to go to the grocery store. I asked G if he would like to go with me, and he ignored me. I took this as a “no”, and P and I started getting dressed to leave. As he saw this, he started to whine about coming with us. I offered again to take him, and asked him to put on his shoes.
G: “No!”
Me: “Ok, then you can’t come. Are you sure?” [get purse]
G: [whines, and runs to me]
Me: “Here are your shoes. Let’s put them on, and you can come with us”
G: “No!” [and runs away]
Me: “Ok! Bye!”
G: [whines, and runs to me]
Here is where we repeated the shoe dance several times. I even put his shoes IN my purse and offered to take him to the car and we can put his shoes there. He kept running away. Finally I walk out the door. He runs over and starts crying. I open the door, offer to take him with me (again), and he (again) runs off to the living room. S at this point just pleaded with me to go. So I did.
Aaaand about 15 min later, I get the following text from S:
“G’s been at the door crying… holding his shoes saying ‘Momma Open the door. Fiffin come too'”
Tear my heart out why don’t you, kid? I gave you plenty of chances, you turned me down, and I STILL feel like the bad guy.
Luckily it was a quick store trip and we came back home. AND I had decided to cut out the BRU and Home Depot part of our shopping program out, since we were already running late for dinner. When we drove up to the house, S and G were outside, waiting for us… G holding his shoes.
Does this make YOU want to cry too?
Foto Friday
From our trip to Lemos Farm. Last year we brought G here to for his first pumpkin overload, and if you remember, he surprised us by standing up on his own for the first time during our adventure there. Well, kind of hard to believe that in one year we’ve gone from this:
to this:
Yeah, getting him to sit still for more than 2 seconds was just about impossible.
G’s 2nd birthday party was supposed to be at Lemos Farm too, but alas, an ear infection decided to crash the party instead. We decided to wait another month until they set up for pumpkin season, and I’m glad we did. It was a fun trip, and G enjoyed spending time with R and Special K (who brought her brand new baby brother out too). G rode the ponies (by himself might I add), got on a hay ride, and also did the train ride around ghost town.
Artwork Day
Wow, has it really been THAT long since I posted one of these?
08.2010
08.2010
08.2010
09.03.2010
09.03.2010
09.13.2010
09.20.2010
10.05.2010
10.05.2010
10.13.2010
10.20.2010
10.2010
It’s a pig!
We ran errands yesterday afternoon with G. While at Whole Foods, S spotted the following post-card and decided to quiz G on what sort of animal was illustrated at the front.
S: G, what is this?
G: [pause] A pig.
Yeah, he told US!
My money!
G found some change on my bed-side table after I had emptied my pockets, and consequently decided it was his. He held it in his hands, while I changed his diapers, continuously referring to it as “Ma Money!”
I don’t think he has any idea what he was really saying, or what the value of the petty change was. But I’m amused it starts now.
Eh, maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll be good with money management.
Better than me, at least, I hope.
“You’re like a bad girlfriend.”
A lot of our interaction with G of late has been around the word “No!”
“No shower!”
“No diaper!”
“No bed!”
“No dinner!”
Paired with some unreasonable requests
“More George!” (after already having seen 2 episodes of Curious George)
“Now HAT!” (referring to Cat in the Hat, when Curious George gets rejected)
“MYYYYYYYY $insert-item-of-choice here”
And then of course there are the schizophrenic requests we get while driving.
“Milk”
“You want milk buddy? Ok, here’s some milk!” (while hanging him a sippy)
“NO milk!”
“Ok, you don’t want milk” (while we take it away)
“Milk!”
And this is what has inspired my (normally) sane husband to flat out say:
“Geez, kid! You’re like a bad girlfriend”
Lessons learned the hard way
I had to get into the driver’s seat via the rear of the car today? Why? Because I locked myself in the backseat of my car.
Since G has been playing escape artist after being unbuckled from his seat, I’ve started applying the child-locks on the rear doors. And of course, I’d forgotten all about this when G asked me to sit next to him after he got in the car. In my “smartness” I wanted to illustrate to him that if I sit in the back with him, then no one would be able to drive the car. So down I sat, and closed the door behind me. G didn’t find his lesson particularly amusing, enlightening or insightful, so I decided we were done and tried to get out. Only to realize I couldn’t. I had two options: 1) yell for help and look like an idiot; 2) climb over to the front of the car and also look like an idiot.
So… what I learned:
1. The Honda Fit has a very narrow space in between the front side seats.
2. The headrests on the Honda Fit are pretty darn tall.
Those two factors, paired with an 8m pregnant lady mean some hilarity watching from the side-lines as she (I) navigates the way to the front. There was definitely some booty wiggling action trying to inch over to the front. Carefully at that, so that I didn’t kick G in the head as I was trying to swing my legs over the seats. What saved me from a line-up of parents laughing hysterically at this sight was 1) tinted windows; 2) me parking at the last spot of the school lot.
So yeah… while G learned nothing from today’s adventure, I learned to never close the rear door behind me… unless I have someone around that can rescue me. Or at least I hope I learned this. We won’t know until the next time I try to lock myself in though 🙂
Movie Monday
Who knew that an activity center has value past the infant stage?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BITl-qk5uaE]
How about 1/2 a cookie? Two cookies!
Do you ever feel like negotiating with a toddler is like negotiating with a terrorist? Toddlers:
1. Have no patience
2. Do not understand/follow logic
3. Are often-times incomprehensive (verbal skills wise)
4. Do not tire of saying “No!” or insisting on whatever it is they want RIGHT.NOW
5. Are happy to blow up your personal sanity in order to achieve their goal
I really feel that the best way to train a negotiator is to put them through a few months of working with toddlers. Negotiating my guy, for example, into a new diaper is both a mentally and physically exhausting activity.
As a related example (although not a true illustration of G at his worst), here’s a story of yesterday’s snack time negotiation.
G (after he had finished a container of yogurt): Cookie!
Me: Ok G, I can give you half a cookie.
G: TWO cookies!!!
How did we get from 1/2 a cookie to 2? S has trained him for two by offering him one for each hand. Thanx, S! So this is where Mommy thinks fast and breaks 1 cookie into 2 halves, and gives each hand something to hold. Yeah, I lost. It wasn’t half a cokie. He got double what I offered. But he didn’t win either, and it was an arrangement I could live with.
I’ve been worn down many times though, and G’s won many more than I’d like to admit. This whole parenting thing is not quite the dictatorship I thought it would be. Sigh!