Relativity

So the poop thing is going really well. Really well. Much better than I could have imagined. However, the stress of it, or at least what I think is the stress of it, is making itself known. It could be that bubs is sensitive to all the changes going on in his little life right now. He is practicing for preschool graduation, he knows he is leaving his aba school and he knows that kindy is around the corner. Add that to the fact that his aba school is riding him a little hard these days, in prep for the changes, thrown in with the potty changes and I think we have a stressed out little child. It's been a tough week for us.

Our conversations go a little like this.... bubs: 'can I have shark bites' (aka 'fruit snacks, aka cavity inducing, hf corn syrup, red dye #40 crap for breakfast)....me:'no, not for breakfast, you can have...(insert list of wonderful choices here)'....bubs: 'YES, I SAID SHARK BITES...growling, yelling screaming....'. This is pretty much how every interaction between us went, and you can add in some more rudeness, on his part, and a little hitting and scratching thrown in for good measure. We don't spank around here, and I never really did the time out thing. I find myself staring blankly at the little dictator wondering what Supernanny would do. Funny, I used to watch that show and look at those poor, weak, parents and think, 'ha, they need a behavioral support plan'...and yeah, I would think I was superior because my kid never behaved like their monsters. 'Ha, they need a naughty chair, we don't need a naughty chair... We have planned ignoring', I presumed. Well, planned ignoring, where are you now?

Granted, the fact that we are even having these headbutting sessions are amazing. From what I hear, this is somewhat typical. The mental sparring going on here is certainly taxing, but I guess taxing in a good way. My husband thinks that you can reason with a tantruming almost five year old. I love when he comes home while I am attempting to wash bubs' hair. I am covered in water, and muttering to myself while bubs is in the tub crying. He had the nerve to tell me, 'Just tell him he can't do that'. Wow, that's a great idea, I think I'll try that next time.

I think he's going to be on the debate team

First of all, it needs to be said that I love the fact that my son is speaking. I love every part of it, when he bosses me around, when he tells me 'no', all the sweet things he says, everything. I relish every utterance (as well as count the words in them too).That said, I think I have a future lawyer on my hands. Tonight the time seemed to escape me with phone calls and dinner and trying to figure out how to work my new blue tooth (it won't work, my ghetto phone doesn't have the capability). It was kind of a half an hour before I wanted to put bubs to sleep. We already had some chatter over the bath time. For some reason my tub loving son didn't want a bath. He insisted he was already clean and that he would have a bath tomorrow. He won his case last night, so I wasn't going to give up on the tub tonight. The trick with bubs is to make him think he came up with the decision all on his own instead of forcing him to do it. It just takes a lot of my already diminishing mind power to accomplish that task. I managed to manipulate a bath out of him. Ok, so I no longer have a stinky child, he has eaten and he wants to watch a show. Not a problem except for the fact that he picks 'nick's greatest hits vol 1' which is a conglomeration of around 6 or so shows. He made it through the first Dora and then a blues clues snuck in under the radar. So I gave him fair warning that once blues clues was over we would be going to sleep. "OK mommy" was his response. Yeah sure it is. So blue's ended and I shut the DVD player off. This is when he turned it on full force. "We can't go to sleep now!" he exclaimed. "I need to watch my show, all of it.". I'll spare you my lame-o responses, suffice it to say they all began with, "NO". In a nice way though, we had a great day and I wasn't half as frazzled as I was yesterday. "But it's still light out", he says. It's pitch black out being that it was 8:00 already about a half an hour past my desired lights out time. I don't know why I engaged in the discussion but I said " it is not". "The sun is out,mommy", "no it isn't", said I. "Yes it is" as he points out a very dark window. This went on for a few rounds. Hey you have to give him credit for trying. I think even he knew he had a weak argument, at best.At this point, planned ignoring was in order so I just went upstairs and set up his bed while he carried on. Poor guy, he was pooped. He finally came up, angry as anything, screaming and yelling, and eventually settling down. I think he fell asleep in less than five minutes. I guarantee that the first words out of his mouth tomorrow morning will be (after asking me where we are going today), "I want to watch my movie, mom".