The rate at which kids grow astonishes me. I was looking at pictures of E from the beginning of this summer and realized how different he is now, a short two months later. He's more interested in doing adult things, is remembering things like crazy, and is mostly capable of expressing his wants and needs.
There are numerous positive aspects of these recent developments and some of them include:
E has become an honestly helpful helper. When he was a baby I'd praise him for his attempts at helping. I'd assist his hands in gripping a book and placing it back on the bookshelves and exuberantly exclaim, "Way to go! You're an excellent helper!" even though it would have been easier to do it myself. Now that's starting to pay off. Case in point: jam night. We had some friends give us a couple bags of apricots and we decided to can jam. I was washing and pitting the apricots when E starting pushing a chair over to sink. He looked up at me and stated rather emphatically, "I'm helping Mommy. It's okay." He
really did help. He would smoosh his thumb into the apricot from the top and then pry it open without squishing the flesh. Then he'd extract the pit and squeal, "Almond!" and put it pit container. He helped for 30 minutes straight and the only distraction came from him insisting that the truck "help" and swim amongst the apricots.
His new found independence also allowed us to graduate to a toddler bed. It was an easy transition since the side of his crib pulls off. I wasn't sure how he'd take to it, but he instantly loved it. The whole morning he would stop whatever he was doing and say, "Mommy, I'm going take a nap now." run into his bedroom, climb onto the bed, and lay there. When real nap time rolled around he anxiously ran into bed and laid there until he fell asleep. After he woke up he didn't even get out of bed. He laid there saying, "Mommy, I'm awake now." and waited until I opened the door to hop out of bed. We transitioned two weeks ago and he's still in "big boy bed" love. Even now, he won't get out of bed until I open the door. I don't think that will last forever, but I'm sure enjoying it for now.
Apparently, T misunderstood that the "big boy bed" really meant "Ethan's bed". For three days after T crawled onto E's bed, E would look at the bed and say, "Silly Daddy. That's Ethan's bed."
E is also desperately trying to learn how to dress himself. As you may have deducted from the photographic evidence, he's not catching on too quickly. It'll likely be a while before we have this skill down, but it's pretty fun to watch him try.
Greater coordination = more fun places to play. E discovered he could climb into the pantry and sit amongst the cereal. He thinks it's the most hilarious thing ever and it cracks me up to.
However, there is a downside to all this freedom and independence. I usually post about how charming E is because more often than not he is charming, but today was not a charming day. In the hour between when E woke up and when we left for church he went to time-out twice. Both times he was sent to time-out for hitting me. Beautiful. We got to church about ten minutes early and they needed T to help bless the sacrament which meant that I would have E sitting with me alone for the first thirty minutes. We hadn't even made it to the opening song before E started to scream/yell. He was sitting on my lap so I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "E we need to use our quiet voices in Heavenly Father's house." What did he do? Looked me in the face and screamed louder. I said, "If you scream again we'll have to go out and have a time-out." So he did it again and we exited the chapel before the first note was sung.
We went to the foyer where I sat E on my lap and said, "When you show Mommy you can be reverent, we'll go back into the chapel." He was very good and sat there for almost 2 minutes so I was preparing for us to go back in after the opening prayer when I looked up and saw another family sit on bench we'd been at. Not a big deal except for the fact that there was a baby blessing and it was the only open spot in the entire chapel. The lady that was behind us in the chapel leaned forward to the family and filled them in but they didn't budge. Great. Now we had no where to sit and our things were under a bench occupied by another family. Just then it was prayer time. I asked E to fold his arms for prayer and he said, "No! I don't want to." and screamed again. I got up with him and left the foyer, where quite a few people were gathering because of the full chapel, and sat in an inconspicuous chair by the water fountain. That lasted for another 30 seconds before E threw another fit and we went to the Relief Society room for time-out on a chair.
In protest of his time-out E began screaming so loud that the ward greeter came in to make sure everything was okay. I assured him E was medically fine and when he exited the room I burst into tears. I really didn't stop weeping for the entire hour plus of sacrament meeting. All I could keep thinking was, "What am I doing wrong? How am I such a complete failure as a mom that I can't even have my kid sit still for five minutes? Why is every other child in our ward his age capable of being reverent? What in the world am I doing wrong?"
Once I began crying E became much better behaved. He even sat next to me stroking my arm and saying, "It's okay Mommy. I love you."
I don't have the answers. I marvel that motherhood can take me to such indescribable highs and then flop me into a depressing low. This isn't the most uplifting or glorious thing to record but I know part of the reason I did it was because I want to remember it. When E has his own 2-year-old, I'll print this out and say, "Honey, it's frustrating but I survived it, you will too, and look how well you turned out." Till that day, I welcome any advise that will help me teach E to manage his emotions and behave better.
