With these smiling faces you'd never know that we were less than an hour away from Daniel being carried kicking and screaming from church after Edward declined to share his Goldfish crackers. Both boys had been offered the same snack choice before we left and Daniel had selected bunny crackers, but had some buyer's remorse when he saw Edward's. Should I have simply forced Edward to hand over his snack? Perhaps, though the way Daniel's fits have been escalating lately, it's unlikely it would have ended there. Instead, we left as fast as we could and I barely made it to the car a block away carrying a writhing, screaming, hitting Daniel. He then screamed all the way home and for half an hour buckled in his car seat (windows and garage door open on a cool morning) once we got home. This pattern has become all too frequent lately and we are absolutely powerless to intervene once he gets going. This one was actually better than most because at least strapped in his car seat we knew he couldn't hurt himself. Although we know that the best response to a toddler tantrum is to ignore/walk away, and we do employ this tactic in other situations, we don't feel this is a safe option during these episodes. He flies around the room crashing into walls, screams and hits whoever attempts to come near, occasionally sweeps entire shelves of books/puzzles to the ground, pulls out dresser drawers, etc. It's actually quite like a night terror episode, except he's awake. At night in the dark he usually isn't terribly mobile so we can just wait nearby until he calms.But he does have moments of controlled anger, such as in the car returning from a picnic Sunday evening when he and Edward were bickering about something completely insubstantial. After several rounds of "No it's not!" "Yes it is!" Daniel finally shouted, "Edward I am SO angry at you. When we get home I am going to draw my angry face on the whiteboard."
Attempts to stifle the front-seat laughter utterly failed. And, just to show how innocuous it all was, it was entirely forgotten by the time we got home 10 minutes later and the whiteboard drawing never appeared.
And we must remember that although he thinks he can do everything Edward can and can talk as well as kids much older, he's still not even three so there's still a baby lurking as seen in his re-imagining of this photograph.There's also plenty of goofy to go around.
This week at school each day has had a theme as they celebrate "Homecoming" in honor of the UI homecoming this weekend. Monday was "Crazy Hair Day" which was eagerly anticipated, despite our boys' cropped locks. After John fixed these 'do's, Daniel shouted as he came down the stairs: "Here comes Daniel in a mohawk!"
And this was a party favor at Daniel's first "friend" birthday party, which he enjoyed two weeks ago. It was fortuitous timing as Edward has suddenly been deluged with birthday invitations and Daniel has had a hard time understanding why he can't go to the parties. We've explained that Edward's friends invite him and when Daniel's friends have parties they will invite Daniel and not Edward. So even though the parents hosting Daniel's friend's party generously offered for us to bring Edward, we kept it strictly a Daniel occasion, which sort of helped when we explained Edward's departure for the next party.Edward's brand of goofy included sprawling himself on the floor of a barn poking a long piece of grass with a sort of cattail on the end through a crack in the floor. "Barn" only applies to the general shape and location of this facility, which is used for parties. John noted as we walked in, "Wow, the floors in this barn are nicer than the ones in our home." Edward had been in the lower level to use the bathroom and wanted to go up a flight of stairs until he noticed that it led straight into the ceiling. It was a trap door from the party room above so I took him back up to show him the outline on the floor of the party room and how the door would open on its hinges if people weren't using the space for tables and chairs. He then spent about 15 minutes laying flat on his belly in the middle of the floor. We didn't know it was anything more than poking a piece of grass through a hole until I finally asked him what he was doing and he replied: "ice fishing."
This one is for Diana and Sean.Sometimes it's easy to forget how literal your world is as a child. On a recent Saturday morning, John had to tell Edward not to bother Daniel, who was carrying a stack of books, because Daniel will have a fit "at the drop of a hat."
Daniel, looking at a book that has fallen off the stack onto the floor: "That's not a hat."
And to show that not all sleep disturbance is a scary night terror, here's what happened last night. On my way to bed I stopped in the boys' rooms to be sure they were covered as our nights are growing quite cool (though not cool enough to turn on heat!) and they both have trouble staying under the covers. Usually I can do this without them noticing even if I have to pull the blanket out from underneath them. But I must have caught Daniel at a bad time because about a minute after I left his room I heard him call out:
"Goldbug! Goldbug?" (This is a character in Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" a current favorite, that John had read before bed about two hours earlier.)
I went in to find him standing in the middle of his room in the dark calling for Goldbug. I asked him if he needed to find Goldbug and he just stood there trying to form words. Classic sleepwalking/talking. I've done it myself--just ask John. He sat down cross-legged for a bit and I sat across from him waiting to see if he'd need anything. Then he just laid down on the floor and closed his eyes. I think he would have stayed there, but I picked him up and put him back in bed.
Edward started playing soccer two weeks ago and seems to be enjoying it. It's all 4- and 5-year-olds, once a week at a park near our house. They're spending the first three weeks just learning some of the basics and then will attempt "games" for the next three weeks, one of which he'll miss while we're in Chicago. I haven't managed any pictures as Daniel is not a good soccer spectator. As soon as Edward joins his team, Daniel makes a beeline to the playground. John may have one on his phone--he tries to stop at the park on his way home from work to catch the last 15-20 minutes or so. If he does, I'll have him post it later.
