What about what I want?

If I hear the words "I want" one more time tonight I am going to completely lose it. I took the boys to Target this afternoon to get a few things we needed and EVERY single sentence out of Collin's mouth began with the words "I want". At first I didn't really pay any attention but suddenly I realized I was saying No a lot so I just stopped responding and started listening to what he was saying. Mommy, I want that. I want M&M's. I want a DVD. I want a book. I want to eat soap. ( I did tell him we don't eat soap) I want Thomas (we were in the toy aisle looking for a birthday present, otherwise I avoid those aisles). He kept up a steady conversation, all of it about what he wants. How do you eliminate that phrase from a 2 year old's vocabulary? I've explained till I'm blue in the face that you can't have everything you want but you can't rationalize with a 2 year old.

God Makes Kids Cute So Adults Don't Kill Them...

Another Collinism: Collin and I were having a conversation this morning while I was getting dressed and I don't know what I told him I couldn't do but he told me "Oh come on Mommy, you can do it!" with just enough attitude to make me laugh hysterically.

I took him to the park today to feed the ducks with Emma. There was only one goose there and it had one leg, it was sad. Collin and Emma fed that goose about 5 hot dog rolls and then I said we were out of bread and it was time to go eat some cookies. It took Collin about half a second to put two and two together and ask to feed the goose some cookies.

I tried a new discipline tactic tonight. Collin has this really annoying fascination with Sadie's water bowl and if he's not putting his toys in it, he's dumping it all over my pergo floor. There's a couple panels that should really be replaced because of this. Anyway he did this several times yesterday and I was at my whits end by the time he did it for the third time tonight. No matter how much I yell at him, put him in time out, make him clean it up, or make him feel guilty, he still loves to play in it and thinks it's hysterically funny when I get mad about it. The third time he decided to dump the bowl tonight I happened to be standing right there and was able to intercept the bowl mid-dump. However I still had to clean up the floor and I was so furious that without really thinking about it, I took the rest of the bowl and dumped it over Collin's head. He was absolutely shocked at first and then pissed. He does NOT like to have water poured over his head. Washing his hair at bath time is a royal pain in the rear end. He stood there and cried and then went and told Daddy that Mommy dumped water on his head. I think Tim was a little annoyed at me for doing this but I had to clean the floor anyway, what difference did a little more water make? So far, Collin hasn't gone near the water bowl and this happened at least 2 hours ago. It's currently 10:00 and he's still awake watching the Ravens game. He doesn't look like he's even remotely tired. We're hoping that if we let him stay up tonight maybe we can sleep in a little bit tomorrow. I'll still have to get up and feed Nicholas but he'll go back to sleep for a few more hours afterwards and so will I. What's the craziest thing you've ever done to discipline your kids?

Is He Just Having a Bad Week?

I've blogged recently about my struggles with Collin and how I think he stays up at night thinking of ways to torture me. He's normally such a sweet child, could it be that he's just having a really bad week? Maybe the weather being so hot and not being able to go outside to play is getting to him? I'm really hoping so because when he got home from daycare today I asked how he'd been and Tim said "bad". I wasn't too surprised since he'd been "anti-establishment" at daycare the other day and had been testing my patience every chance he got at home. Unfortunately, it was worse than I thought. He bit one of the little girls at daycare for taking a toy he was playing with! She's a really cute little girl, just turning one in a couple weeks. He absolutely knows better than to bite! We went through a phase where he was biting family, but not other kids (at least not that I'd been told about) and to my knowledge he hasn't even tried to bite anyone is months. Why is he suddenly doing this now and what do I do about it? I'm sure his sitter punished him when he did it, but I took away TV for the night as well and we had a long talk about how its wrong to bite and he promises not to do it again. He's 2, he can't keep a promise. I'm horrified and embarrassed that he's done this. Tomorrow when I pick him up I'm going to make him apologize to Sophia. Her parents must think he's such a brat. I know that's what I thought when I found a mouth shaped bruise on Collin! (I'm still not sure which kid put it there but I have a pretty good guess) I so hope that this is a one time thing and he's learned a lesson. I'm more afraid that its something that's going around daycare. Usually this kind of stuff goes in spurts. One kid starts it and the rest do it until it gets nipped in the butt. I hope he's picked up on a trend and not started one. I also hope this is the end of it. If its not, he's not going to be having any fun any time soon!

My Son Really Does Want To Torture Me

When I picked Collin up today, his sitter told me he'd been anti-establishment all day. Everything was "no, don't wanna". I should have known I was in for it right then and there. Tonight Collin was in one of those moods where he thought it was really funny to do what he knows he isn't allowed to do. Nick has a portable swing that's great because it doesn't take up a lot of room, but Collin really really wants to swing in it. Tonight he went over to it, stood in front of it, looked at me and started to squat. When I called his name, he grinned at me with that glint in his eye and sat down. "Collin, do you want Mommy to turn Thomas off?" (he'd begged to watch Thomas just a few minutes earlier). He stood up, grinned at me and started to sit again. Thomas got turned off. He stood up again. I turned Thomas on in an effort to show him that if he behaved, I would let him watch. He sat down again. Thomas went off and Jeopardy went on. No amount of begging and pleading was getting Thomas back tonight. Collin went upstairs to see Daddy. I fed Nick and didn't worry too much about him. The next thing I knew, there was Collin telling me "Collin has a marker" and holding an uncapped purple marker. Oh Crap! I put poor Nick down mid suck and went chasing after Collin who promptly ran to the front door and drew on it. I was furious but I figured magic eraser would take care of it. I sent him up to his room. As we got to the top of the steps, I found more of Collin's artwork. ALL OVER THE CARPET! Oh my God, I swear I could have killed him. I guess Tim thought he was with me and I thought he was with Tim. I still can't figure out where he found the marker. He also managed to get the bathroom door and the stool that goes with the rocker in Nick's room. I finally got to use the carpet cleaner that we got at the Maryland Home and Garden show and I think the marker came out. He knows better, he really does. This is just one more way to torture me!

The terrible 2's and then some...

Oh my gosh, my beautiful baby boy hit 2 and turned into a little devil! Since his birthday party at daycare on Friday, we've had more than few incidents that made me want to pull my hair out. The first occurred Friday evening as I was changing him before going out to pick up dinner. We were in the living room, and I should mention for those of you out of town that the weather is beautiful and the doors and the windows have been open. That being said, we were changing Collin's diaper in the living room and he got away from me. Being big and fat and pregnant, I didn't jump up and chase him immediately, instead opting to yell to him to get his little butt back here. After a minute or two of hearing nothing but giggling, and with no sign of his return, I managed to get my butt up off the floor and track Collin down. I found my sweet angel standing in front of our open front door, in nothing but his t-shirt, giggling at the puddle of pee and pile of poop that he'd just made, again right in front of my very open glass door. I hope none of my neighbors were walking by while he was doing this. I hauled his little butt back to the living room, got a new diaper on him and had a discussion about how he didn't have to wear a diaper if he didn't want to, but that meant he had to go to the bathroom in the potty. I really don't expect that discussion to lead to anything. The next incident occurred while I was out getting dinner. I returned home to find that while Tim had turned his back for a few moments, Collin had chosen to update our kitchen floor with his latest artwork. By the way, magic eraser is great at removing crayon from ceramic tile. Then this morning, as Tim and I were attempting to combine closets in preparation for the arrival of the yet to be named baby, we made the mistake of allowing Collin to play by himself downstairs. The doors were all shut, the cabinets were all locked. The house was baby proofed, or so we thought. Then we heard the sound of lots of little things falling on the floor and Collin giggling again in delight. We came downstairs just in time to discover that Collin had opened the can where we keep Sadie's dog food and proceeded to distribute her food all over, not only the dining room, but the living room as well. I should mention that this was after I watched him put a chicken nugget in his mouth at lunch, walk over to her and feed it to her, right from his mouth. I swear he wasn't doing this stuff a week ago!