Boy- by Wife

*Our little early bird.  Mr Boy has been rising with the sun the last couple of months.  He is so loving and sweet and will come and snuggle with us in bed and wait for the girls to wake up.

*The sam'est'.  Boy has been 'practicing' with prefixes and suffixes lately.  It is hilarious.  My current fave is samest.  When two things are the same or similar Boy runs around saying, 'They are the samest!"

*Mr. Independent Play.  Boy's attention span continues to astound me.  As long as he is not distracted (which is often) he can stay very content with a small pile of toys or books.  Current favorites include Cars, dominoes, Duplo barn legos, and his truck and car collection (which he carries around in a sweet Napolean Dynomite metal lunch box).

*Potty trained!  After months and months and months of accidents Boy has turned the corner with undies.  A couple of weeks ago he said, "Mom I won't poop in my pants any more."  I was skeptical :), but now I see him stop playing, come inside and holler (to no one in particular) "I need to go poo poo!".  Yay!

*ABCs and 123s.  Boy recognizes many letters now and is in love with a show called, Word World.  Boy has also been counting quite a bit and what I am most impressed with is his ability to count small groups of items without using his fingers.  I will ask him how many bowls are on the table at dinner and he will quickly look around and say 4.  I think that is pretty neat.

*Our biggest discipline areas are acting silly to avoid having a serious conversation and dealing with the fact that about 90% Boy's first responce to everything is "No!" (Something he mimics from his father)  It is as automatic as a reflex.  His "No!" answers have become so common that now I mostly just ignore the first thing he says and give him a couple of seconds to actually think about the question and do what I am asking him.  As for acting silly, Boy often crosses his eyes or does a silly dance when we are trying to explain consequences.  Eh, could be worse:)

*Pointing with his whole hand.  It is adorable and he looks like a game show host whenever he wants to show us anything!

 

Part 2:

Boy and I have not been getting along.  It's true.  It is weird to admit, but when I thought about it..that's just what is happening.  Let me go back.  Ancora has been going to the feild/deployed since the kids were 20 months.  That is basically half of Boy's life and he is SO much more sensitive to when E is away and when he is not. 

E has been on vacation and we have had a lot of Daddy time the last month.  Now, with Eric gone to work, the little pieces of defiance, easily irritated, not listening...have been trickling in.  It seems that everything I do to handle the situation with Boy only made things worse.  

We were mad at eachother.

I was getting concerned.  Boy was having more accidents and continued to withdraw from me verbally day by day.

This week, my sweet friend, texted me out of the blue offering to take both girls for a couple of hours so that Boy and I could have some alone time!  Yes, please.

Let's go!

*All of the pictures in this post are courtesy of the iphone!

Lunch at the food court.  Boy's chose, "rice and beans...and cheese and salad" (that is what the kids call lettuce).  I was so proud of him, he was SO happy eating and chatting and just basically getting to do whatever he wanted and not having to wait for either of his sisters to take some of the attention away.

"Are you having fun?"

"Yes mommy!"

We were watching the light rail and decided to take a quick ride. It is SO different having a 1 to 1 ration with a child.  You can change plans, pick up a kid and go!  No planning for infant meals/diaper changes, no negotiating who is going to go first/if we both want to ride the train/run to the bathroom.  

Honestly, this 2 hour date day invigorated BOTH of us!  Boy has been talking more, listening better, happier (just look at his smile in the next pic!  I haven't seen that free of a smile  in a while.