Gotta love it- incredible, but not so edible

James decided to start this morning off with a lighthearted egg toss game, and although this unfortunate egg never did get a chance to ruin my bowl of cereal (I was grateful) it did end up sustaining some serious, life-threatening injuries. Not to worry, an egg is easily expendable; you simply toss it in the garbage and there is relatively no change in day or lifestyle. Throwing away a cracked egg is completely harmless, in fact, until you factor in my 2 year old. Jonathan is a trash-digger by nature, and he is always curious about the contents of his favorite white container with the cool flip-lid. He must have somehow known about this new addition, because about 30 minutes later, I found him with a coated drinking glass. Fortunately, he tends to get a little hung up on how the tall glasses work, and the egg plastered his stomach on the outside rather than the inside. After cleaning that mess, I assumed we were done with the incident. That is, until I opened up the washing machine and found I had to shake the life out of every single thing. Apparently the trash can is not as intersting a place for an egg shell as an agitating wash machine.

big boys don't cry- unless their bottles are taken away

Jonathan was doing fairly well with the bottle-sippy transition up until Ethan was born. For the past 9 months, it's been a real struggle, however, as Jonathan is (as mentioned before) big on Jonathan-equality. About 3 weeks ago, I was trying to decide when would be a good time to make him give them up. Do I wait 3 months until Ethan is old enough, and take them away together? Then I wondered, what if I got pregnant again (just for the record, I am not going to) and there was another baby who got bottles? Would all 3 of them get bottles? Of course not, that would be insanity. People with multiple children can wean their eldest, and so can I. That morning, we decided we were ready to do whatever it took to help Jonathan recover from his bottle addiction. Of course, the first day without baba's, it ended up reaching 86 degrees inside. Having left our 2 bedroom apartment with central air for a three bedroom with windows that don't even accomodate window a/c, I probably should have tried this in the spring. He cried and refused sippy after sippy, big boy cup, straw, even the ones he used to like best, as part of an elaborate thirst strike. Bedtime that night was fun for all in attendance, and for the neighbors who must have wondered what on earth was going on. I think he drank maybe 16 ounces that whole day. As he was curling up, finally going to sleep, I nearly caved. We were trying to teach him to give up babas, but what kind of lesson would I be teaching my son if we had to take him to the emergency room for dehydration? That IV's are better for little boys than bottles? Just as I was about to spring from my seat and get him a bottle, his little eyelids fell closed. We tucked him in, until 3 am when he woke me up crying. At that point, I got the biggest bottle we have (nine ounces, not eight!) and filled it with cold water. He felt warm and I was starting to really worry. The next morning, he woke up with a sopping wet diaper and I couldn't have been happier. I handed him his green sippy and he downed it. There have been times since then when he has looked longingly at Ethan's bottles, when he has even taken them, but he's getting used to it. I should have known it was going to be an ordeal when Jonathan was learning his first words. I wasn't surprised when he said dada first, but I was surprised that baba came before mama. I guess that means that with bottles out of the picture, I must be Jonathan's second favorite thing. Finally.

the mind of Jonathan

A couple of months ago, James and I were playing a "would you rather" game, and he posed the question, "would you rather have Ethan hold his own bottle, Jonathan learn to talk, or Jonathan potty trained?" I replied that I would rather Jonathan learned to talk. He was somewhat surprised by my answer, until I explained how nice it would be if Jonathan could just tell me what he needed, rather than having it be a twenty questions game I played by myself. "Does he need to poop? Might he be hungry? Is he thirsty? Bored? Tired? Maybe his tummy hurts? Do kids get headaches? What happened more often than not is a whole rigamarole of possible solutions to possible problems that ended with a Tylenol and 2 exhausted parents. James has actually been working with him on a lot of words, and Jonathan has expanded his vocabulary very well. What I have discovered, is that the 2 year old mind is a lot simpler than I would have thought. I was standing at my dresser picking out a shirt the other day, and Jonathan burst through the door. Previously, he would have screamed some kind of "ole-oo-ugh-mim" and I would have been left scratching my head. But this time, using his new vocabulary, Jonathan could tell me exactly his frustrations. "Out!" he cried, and then he began putting up his little baby fingers. "One, two..... out!" He was furious with me for not listening the first time. I get it. Jonathan isn't allowed in my room, neither is mommy. None of this silly double standard stuff. My 2 year old is all about equality.

what have I done?

When I was in my early years of public schooling, we had to fill out a cute little assignment that included our life's goals, aspirations, dreams, and plenty of other things that we had spent very little time thinking about. At this age, I must have had no concept of what Josh and I were like, because I picked as a future career that I wanted to be "a mommy." Years later, I met the requirements and got handed my sparkling new title. It's been kind of a crazy 2 1/2 years, but I have learned a lot and so far I am loving it amidst the frustrations.

One of the most challenging things about this career is how difficult it is to track your progress. I've told my son many times, in the midst of punishing him, that I am "not going to raise a brat." Then there are many times that I wonder if I already have. I say "no," he screams it back in my face. Baby Ethan plays with one of Jonathan's toys, he snatches it up. Baby Ethan plays with one of Ethan's toys, and Jonathan snatches it up. I tell him to go to his time out chair, he gets up twenty seconds later and pulls his diaper off just so he can pee in his toy truck. Once in a while, however, there are these glimmering moments where he does something so super sweet, like kissing brother because he is sad, or helping Ethan eat his bottle when Jonathan openly resents that he can't have one anymore. It's times like those when I like to think that his real, sweet little spirit is shining through, and that when he's finished trying to accomplish his toddler agenda, that's what will be left. I don't know. Perhaps it's just that there are little bits of him I haven't managed to ruin. Yet.