Last week I didn't write because I was busy trying to get my head on straight in houston. This week I didn't write because...well we have had some challenging days.
William has opinions. He has his own thoughts. He has his own ideas of how things should go. For instance, he should be able to get into the bath tub in his socks. And he should be able to eat one bite of pork and a plate full of snacks for dinner. And he should be able to go outside every time Layla does. And so on.
The problem is William's mommy has quite a few opinions of her own and has been called hard headed a day or two in her life.
So we've had a lot of battles of the wills lately, the worst coming on tuesday night. It was catastrophe after catastrophe. One rough evening and I'm not sure which of us was more exhausted by 7:30 when he fell asleep.
I was at the end of my rope that night, clueless as to how to tackle this stage. On the one hand, I realize that as he develops and grows he is trying to assert his independence and his personality and I need to encourage that. On the other hand, I'm the parent here and we all know the purpose of becoming a parent is to FINALLY be the one to say 'because I said so'
But there's got to be a balance here!
Yesterday morning I picked out a shirt for him, then decided to give him 2 choices. He chose the one I had originally picked, but the difference was his pride. He was beaming and practically ripping his pj's off to get his 'money' (monkey) shirt on. Same went for socks and shoes.
Last night I gave him 2 dinner choices - both I had prepared on Sunday for this week, both were good choices. And he was ecstatic to build his own plate.
I don't know if this is the answer or just a temporary solution but we sure had a better day. And I'll do just about anything for a good day with little bear!
I think the biggest advancement in his vocabulary since I last wrote is his fascination with transportation.
Airplane (air-pee)
Bus (busssss)
18 wheeler (beep beep)
Truck (rrrrruck)
Car
Bike
Tractor (rac-or)
I haven't decided what we will do for his birthday - big party, little party, Denver party, Houston party, no party...up in the air. But whatever we so I believe transportation equipment better be incorporated!
We still love Elmo and have learned to love some of his friends:
Ernie
Oscar(his favorite to say and he nails the C)
Abbey
Big bird
Bert on some days
And the latest: Grover
His language is still primarily one that only mommy understands but in my 100% accurate opinion, he speaks wonderfully! I'm so impressed.
He is very aware that we can talk to dada on the iPad and last night, without my knowledge, he went upstairs, got my iPad and brought it back to me. He kept asking for dada but I couldn't deliver on that, so I opened one of his fisher price games which seemed to suffice. Sunday we had a nice talk with dada and he was so excited to see his face.
So I apologize that this post is long overdue, but I had to evaluate the situation of having a house full of independent minds (Reagan not to be excluded) keep us in your thoughts - I see years of head butting in our future :) but when have I ever backed down from an argument???
- manda
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