So Ethan has begun to say some really cute things lately about his "boy," Alex. We keep telling him that Alex is our child, his brother; our baby, his brother; our little boy, his borther. He still insists that Alex is HIS baby - his child - his boy. Tonight, for example, Alex was loving on Steve and Ethan decided to get in on it a little. He went over and said to Alex, "do you know how much I love you?" Alex continued grunting and laughing and playing. Ethan answered his own question by saying, "because God makes me love you so much because you are dust my child." It was really just too cute. Steve tried to explain again that Alex is our child - Mama & Daddy's child just like Ethan is - Alex is Ethan's brother. Ethan didn't agree - "noooo, he'd dust my child cause God said." Well, ok - if God said, who are we to argue? Too cute....
On to the not so cute....that would be the one totally into the terrible two's and yet several months shy of 2 still. Alex has developed this nasty little habit; it goes something like this: Alex is laughing and smiling and doing something he's not supposed to be doing and pretending we are all ok with it. Mama (or Daddy, but usually Mama) says "Alexander David, stop it right now" or "Alexander David!" or "Alexander David, come here right now!" Alex turns to look at Mama (or Daddy if this happened to be the one time he's being the "heavy") and SCREAMS with a look very similar to the one I was giving him very much like a teenager who is vehemently making his/her point known by screaming "I hate you!" Yeah, this is so NOT cute and sadly for Alex, tends to create one of only a couple of different punishments: 1) Mama swats his hiney and puts him in the corner to time out or 2) Mama smacks his mouth and puts him in time out. This of course creates more screaming but in the form of crying with the world's worst fake pout turned real tears but eventually he will learn that screaming at Mama (again, or Daddy) is not acceptible behavior. Yes, that's right - he's not quite 2 years old yet and already getting spanked but nothing else seems to break the dimpled exterior to make him realize I'm serious - if anyone has other ideas on breaking that nasty habit of his, I'm all ears but before I'll actually try them, I want to see you make them work on this particular child who thinks everything is funny - even getting in trouble - unless his hiney or mouth gets smacked that is.
Back to the cute....tonight I took my sandals off and asked Alex (yes, same angelic demon child mentioned above) to put them in the shoe box by the door for me. He happily picked them up and ran to the front room to put them away. He came back to me grunting like Lassie while carrying one shoe - obviously, it was the grunt of "help, come with me please." I followed him and the panic left the grunt but not the emphasis - he took me to the trash can by the front door which is directly beside the shoe box. He's holding one shoe and reaching in the trash. I looked and sure enough, the other shoe was in the trash just out of his reach. He had accidentally put the shoe in the wrong "box" and couldn't get it out. Since I threw 3 pee-pee diapers in that can during the course of the rest of the night, I'm extremely happy that he told me about this as soon as it happened so as not to steep my shoes in pee all night. We got it out of the trash and I had to give it to him for him to put it in the right box as it wasn't acceptable to him for me to put the shoe away. When both shoes were finally in the "shoe box" rather than the trash at his hands, Alex happily walked away and then turned to look at me saying "hug...hug." Yeah, you're right kiddo - that ordeal deserves a hug. [Note: it's this type of cuteness that makes it really difficult to smack his mouth or hiney when he exhibits the above screaming behavior.]
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