Mr. Attitude

Alex got a Valentine that I am now thinking he fully understood when I read it to him. His Valentine from Mama & Daddy had a cute puppy dog on the front and it said:
Happy Valentine's Day to an incredibly cute, lovable son...
[Inside] You have no idea how many times this has kept you from getting in really big trouble.

Maybe I just didn't notice how much his pushes the envelope trying to get away with stuff until yesterday. Either way, I've now noticed and I have no clue how I'll make it till the "terrible two's" are over - especially given that he's not even 15 months so we have a long haul before 2 years even.

He wants whatever Ethan has. Ethan will give it to him and get something else; Alex immediately drops item 1 and wants item 2. The only positive outcome of this is that he is completely bottle free and has been for about a month because he wants Ethan's sippy so we just stopped giving him a bottle, even for bedtime which up till then, he'd still been using. He didn't even notice. Why? Because Brother had a sippy so he wanted one - really he wanted Ethan's sippy but whatever, it's a sippy. Ethan occasionally gets Sprite which Alex isn't allowed yet and Ethan has 2% milk to Alex's whole milk or we wouldn't care at all what cup he took. And by "we" I totally mean Steve & I as Ethan has an absolute conniption fit when Alex dares to take Ethan's cup - even when they do both have the same drink. Oh joy.

Of course, it doesn't help when we tell Alex to stop doing whatever or give Ethan's toy back or give Ethan's cup back or whatever and Ethan pipes up in a nasty little tone, "YEAH OWIX. Stop it!" Even telling Alex to come to us, Ethan tries to "help" us parent. Me: "Alex come here please. Alexander David - come here right now." Ethan: "Owixanda Davit. Come to Mama. Come right now. Come to her. OWIXandA. Come to Mama. (pause) Mama, he's dust not listening to you." Uh - yeah, cause he can't hear me over you telling him.

Tonight at dinner he did it again. Alex was picking his bowl up which usually precedes him flipping it over onto the floor. As I'm not a fan of picking up spaghetti off the floor, I said "No sir. Put that bowl down." Ethan: "Owix! Don't pick you bowl up. Dust leave it on da table." Me: "Ethan listen. I am the parent and Daddy is the parent. You are the child and Alex is the child. You do not tell him what to do. We tell him what to do and we do not need your help. Do you understand?" Ethan: "Yes. (pause - nasty tone) Owix, you dust need to eat you dinner!" Me: "Ethan Tanner - do not tell him what to do. The only person you can tell what to do is yourself. Not Mama, not Daddy, not Ethan...I mean, not Alex. Just Ethan - NOT Alex. Understand?" (yeah ok so he flustered me so much as I was trying to save Alex's plate from the floor again that I said the wrong name. I so hate that).

So anyway, Alex has 2 parents and a parent helper and he listens to none of us. He tonight sat quietly on the floor and proceeded to take every piece of paper & magazine out of the cubby beneath the table in the living room. The table he is told multiple times EVERY day not to touch. He did this while I cleaned the kitchen and Steve watched the news. He'd been quietly playing with a toy so Steve didn't notice when he switched to quietly removing all the stuff he's not supposed to touch. Steve then got to bellow repeatedly to get Alex (& poor Ethan who did nothing except watch Alex remove all the stuff) to pick it all up and put it back. Ethan was doing just that as Alex was taking more things out. I could hear all this from the kitchen and thought, "oh good, he doesn't just do it to me; he does it to his daddy, too." After the 5th or 6th, "Alex, NO! Put it back! Give Daddy the paper." I went to the gate and said in my best "do it now" voice, "Alexander David, come here right now." He looked at me and grunted "huh?" "Come here." He came over and I bent down to his level and looked him right in the eye and said in a very loud, stern voice, "stop taking stuff you know you aren't supposed to have and go clean it up." He'd been smiling when he came to me but as I spoke his little lip quivered. I stood up and he walked back over and started picking up the stuff, quivering lip and all. Steve actually started to laugh because of the expression on Alex. That is precisely why I end up doing most of the discipline I guess - because Steve can't chastise without cracking up - he couldn't even give the stern look to start the talk if Alex had looked at him with the grin he'd given me. I hate having to do it but I'll never get through the official terrible two's if I don't stand my ground now.

So these are just a few examples but he is totally "Mr. Attitude" these days. You tell him something and he ignores it. He just grunts at you like "whatever" (which I'd hoped to wait till he was a teenager to get that attitude) and goes about whatever he was doing. He whines to get Ethan in trouble if Ethan doesn't give him whatever he was playing with. What Alex hasn't yet realized is that if we are in the room when he whines for that effect, it doesn't work because we can see that Ethan didn't do anything. Of course, Ethan hasn't quite realized that either because he still insists, "I don't know what's wrong. I didn't do anything." When he gets fed up though and pushes Alex down, that's when he gets in trouble. On second thought, maybe Alex does realize that and therefore continues to harass Ethan until Ethan has had enough and pushes him away which then gets Ethan in trouble and gets Alex what he wanted. I'll have to pay better attention to that aspect tomorrow to see if he is that conniving at his young age and nip that in the bud quickly.