work in progress

after a day that began with promise -- a doctor's visit for his third-year checkup, in which he comported himself with surprising calm, even as he had a vial of blood drawn -- that was leading to the purchase of a prize for his good behavior, the boy gave in to his baser instincts of willfulness and violent protest and lost not only his prize, but a goodly number of his christmas toys and his best bedtime companions for the foreseeable future.

his temper tantrums coupled with the sibling rivalry he feels from his now-kinda walking sister has led to some exasperating, disheartening moments in child-rearing.

the pushing, the hitting and the biting of everyone but me and the cat has led to some real moments of alarm and despair.

pondering his mother's texts reporting on his latest missteps from the remove of the newspaper parking garage, i can look at these moments as the painstaking process of chiseling form from rock.

there are the broad expanses where pieces fall in chunks, such as use of a spoon and fork, and then there is the detail work where time-consuming, repetitive taps delineate more subtle features, such as kindness, patience, gentleness and generosity.

close-up, before the final work is presented, it seems as though nothing is being accomplished and that our efforts are in vain.

but i have to believe, through the grace of God, that in the long view we are oh-so-slowly creating a person who will be of some merit to the world.

love, we have in no small measure; we must maintain with faith and hope, perseverance, and, yes, joy.

little trucker

the boy and i took in the west virginia auto show today.

he was a lot less cooperative than he was last year, when it was pretty easy to manipulate -- or carry -- him from one exhibit to another.

he got pretty insistent at times about what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go, even when he had no idea where it was he was going.

given i was just killing time wandering from place to place, it didn't matter much. but once things started getting ridiculous, such as his nearly bratty requests to ride up and down the busy escalators, i knew it was time to leave.

he let out a nice, long, attention-grabbing scream as carried him out of the civic center, but we just kept on going.

he's going to have to learn he's not going to be able to run over us and get his way.

snow, finally

so we got a bit of snow after a good week of nice, dry, chillingly cold temperatures.

the forecast called for as much as 5 inches. i said i'd believe it when i saw it.

we might have gotten two inches.

still, it was enough for the boy to get excited about getting out and building a snowman.

unfortunately, while cold and dry makes for great snow skiing, it's not so great for snowman-making.

combine that with the lack of focus brought on by hardly any nap, and we spent our hour or two in the snow flitting from one distraction to the next.

shoveling snow was just one of them. (but it was nice to see he had a knack for it.) chasing boys on the sleds was one. sticking his tongue in the snow was another.

he was running ragged even before we left the house, so getting him back in would have been a bear, had he not decided that walking onto the back porch was a good idea, given its proximity to the back door that his mama opened for us.

it was going to be an early night. once he'd calmed down and had some supper, he asked for a picture with his sister for some reason. was he trying to ingratiate himself with us or just feeling sweet?

anyway, it made for a cute pic. we'll take them any way we can get them.

"obana"

watching the live feed of the inauguration.

the boy actually watched barack obama's inauguration speech this week. i don't know if it's because he was interested in the man speaking so forcefully on the screen or just that there was anyone talking on the screen.

even after we turned his chair around for lunch, he kept peering over the back to watch the screen as we put our food on the table.

the boy calls the president "obana."

when he first became familiar with the term, just about any time we spoke of a "president" he would ask "obana?"

this is the only president he's ever known. it makes me curious as to how this historic president will figure into the boy's future grasp of history or if he'll have any recollection of him at all.

whoa!

so the boy turned 3 this week.

and he was blessed with the sense that he knew it was his special day without any presumption of entitlement.

he didn't expect any special treatment or try to bend the occasion toward mean or selfish ends.

he only expected balloons, cake and presents. and he knew he got to blow out a candle.

in a lot of places, that's probably more than anyone could hope for, so we should again count ourselves blessed and lucky.

three years ago seem so long ago and yet so near and easily remembered.

there was his mom trying to squeeze this monkey out of her body.

there's him taking a wiz in a great arc as the nurses weighed him.

there's his mama crying after we get home from the hospital because we're suddenly on our own.

and just like that, the boy is 3.



i'm including this picture from after our breakfast party to illustrate how the boy's mind has evolved even from a year ago.

just in front of him is a air control tower playset my sister gave him for christmas 2011, when he wasn't quite 2.

kris put it together for him, but aside from watching the airplane wend its way along the track, the boy didn't get too much from it and we wound up putting it away.

while we waited for his mama to finish making breakfast, he and i constructed the little town at his feet.

i laid down the interlocking street pieces and he helped lay out the railroad track. (i had to make sure it cleared my streets.)

the boy positioned his "farm" and built the brightly colored skyscraper. i figured it was time to get the airport out of storage.

it came with a remote control that powered on and off the airplane on its track. i told him the green button meant "go" and the red meant "stop."

he knew right there and then what to do and he was tickled pink that he could make the thing "take off" and "land." he worked the controls like a pro.

now he had an airport to include in the scenarios he devised for the town.

and it seems like his imagination is taking off, too.

one other thing i was most grateful to hear was appreciation and gratitude.

out from the blue, as he and i were getting back to building our "neighborhood," as he likes to call it, he said "that was a beautiful party" and "thank you, daddy."

i told him that his mama, who was out of the room, did all the work. once she came in a little while later, i asked him to repeat what he had told me.

not only did he not refuse and clam up, with not much prodding, he gave kris a hug and a kiss.

once he returned to his play, kris signaled to me that her uterus was fluttering. i think she was going to cry.

um, yeah

i really have to stop posting about behavioral "breakthroughs." they are invariably followed by "backslides."

oh, behave

it took almost a year to figure this out, but we may have hit upon a key to our surviving this boy's "terrible twos". (which will give way in a matter days to the less-publicized "threatening threes" -- which i just made up, but were an extension of the twos that i was warned about before the boy turned 1.)

i've gone back and forth between breakthroughs and breakdowns in the boy's development.

each "breakthrough" is usually ushered in by some sort of silver bullet that serves as a deterrent to bad behavior.

vinegar spritzes. baby gate incarceration. prolonged bear hugs in the "time out" chair.

ultimately, they were all punishments, threats that were held over his head and used as leverage to force good behavior.

the flaw in our reasoning was hoping that a 2-year-old boy was himself capable capable of reasoning.

("gee," we hoped he'd be thinking, "if i persist in screaming, i will have a shot of vinegar sprayed into mouth. i should certainly hope to avoid that. therefore, let me be quiet. there. i have ceased screaming. no vinegar for me! hooray!")

the effectiveness of our remedies was pretty much always short-lived. after a few days of often exemplary behavior, he'd lose his fear and reason and charge through the blockades we'd erected and blow up. screaming. hitting. throwing stuff around. the whole nine yards.

at some point during year two, we began noticing his behavior was fairly even and agreeable if had something in his belly beyond his three squares. we began to wonder if low blood sugar played a part in his temper flare-ups.

little snacks went a long way to keeping him in line. but it didn't keep "the beast" at bay on a consistent basis.

baby steps

they're steps. mostly assisted steps. shuffling sideways steps. sneaky, while you don't have a camera steps.

they've been like bigfoot sightings, while i'm at work.

From 1/8: (Baby) is walking. Full length of (boy)'s room. Her rsv test came back positive.... She seems better now.... And walking. Yeah.
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) January 20, 2013

but she's soon to be walking as her primary means of locomotion.

couple this with her emerging assertiveness toward the boy's toys and we'll have a real sibling rivalry on our hands. and it's not going to be pretty.

they boy is busy staking out his turf, while poaching hers and expecting no repercussions. once she's able to defend herself, these two are going to be at each other.

so enjoy your advantage over the toddling sister with the high center of gravity while you can, little boy. once she's stronger and steady on her feet, you're not going to know what hit you.

on the verge

beige and blue, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

turned 49 last week. that's one away from 50 -- and aarp. whoa.

but look at these kids. wow.

it's a start

as i am ailing and tired and have to look forward 8 months for any hope from my mountaineers, i'll share the something from today that made me laugh to kick off the new year:

Guess who ate 3 peas and some fresh chicken? My son. Guess who pooped in the bathtub? Yours.
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) January 1, 2013