Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Proud, yet exasperated.

On the plus side: Muffin Man is potty trained, he likes his "privacy" when he's doing his thing. He pees standing up. At the real, honest-to-goodness toilet! He wipes. He washes his hands (with a reminder, and a bit of supervision). He flushes. He's such a big boy!!!!

With every silver lining, a cloud:

He's being a real pain in my ass.
"I don't want that shirt - I want this shirt! NO! NOT THE SHIRT I JUST SAID! THE OTHER ONE!"
"I want my Nemo underwear, not that Nemo underwear! The OTHER Nemo underwear!"
"NOOOOOOOO!!!"

And that's just this morning.

I'm giving him alot of leeway because of the whole potty thing, but he's still resorting to hitting. And then he laughs at me. And that just drives me flipping crazy.

And he's normally such a sweetie. A loving, hugging, kissing boy. Seriously, he says and does the most wonderful things. Most of the time.

I like Phantom Scribbler's way of dealing with LG today. Perhaps I'll try that tomorrow.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

He is very sweet to me and my boy, and for that I love him.

And, yay, I just noticed today that Mr. Spock has joined the blog patrol! Cool.

Scrivener said...

I don't suppose it's even the slightest bit helpful to point out that this is all perfectly normal testing of limits, does it? There are mornigns where it helps me to say to myself, "she's just trying to assert her independence and I should encourage that so that one day I don't have to stand here and help her get dressed" and then there are other days when I just want her to put on the fucking shirt.

jo(e) said...

Seems like it's always that way with kids. They take one big step forward in one area ... and somehow that causes them to regress to acting like total brats in some other area.

Well, maybe it's not just kids. I'm 44 and I still do that too ....

Running2Ks said...

Oh man, hitting. We are so on the zero tolerance there. I remove privileges just at the yelling stage (with conversations much like Phantom's). I wish you patience and luck in the trying (normal, I suppose) times!

Phantom Scribbler said...

Did I mention that I sometimes threaten to send my kid to his room for the rest of his life? Or that he's FOUR and still not potty trained?

I got no answers for you. Bupkes.

Stevens Miller said...

E=ir. 186,000 mi/sec. No hitting.

Not just good ideas. They're the law.

Betsy said...

Ah - finally, something I can help with!

Pick out two of everything. Give him a choice - but ONLY between those two things. Start it off very explicitly - 'you get two choices' - but make it seem like a huge deal that HE gets to CHOOSE.

This technique will serve you well for the next several years - trust me on this!

Jennifer (ponderosa) said...

It must be in the air. My son has been doing the same thing. My loving, generous-hearted, adorable son -- yes, that one! Last night he did a big disappearing act. Ran after his dad, who had gone on a bike ride -- I chased after him IN BARE FEET holding my (fortunately small!) 1-year-old IN MY ARMS for nearly half a mile! The only reason I caught him was because he got tired and sat down. Know what he said? "I just wanted my daddy."

Good luck with Muffin Man. Let me know what works : )