Fussiness and Weekend Fun!

At what point do kids think they know better than their parents? I sure remember thinking as a teenager that I was pretty darn smart. Haha, little did I know. But I am thinking that Will already thinks he's smarter than me! The struggle for independence is (from what I understand) a big cause of the terrible twos. The other main cause is lack of communication. So he wants to go upstairs to get a car and he'd like me to accompany him. Instead of using the words that he knows, something like this, "Mama, stair? Car?" It goes more like this,
Him: Car!
Me: Here's a car!
Him: CAR!! (angrier)
Me: You've got 2 cars right here baby, do you want to play cars?
Him: (Falls down crying) Carrrrr...caaaaaaaah!!!!!!! (dissolving into tears...)
5 minutes later, he'll pull my hand upstairs where there is car that he's left up there.

But just the other day, we were eating and he was wanting to use his for to eat noodles and green beans. Baby forks are really more like sporks, which are perfect. He sometimes scoops food, and sometimes pokes it. In this case, he was trying to poke spaghetti noodles. From my vast experience, I know this will not work. I tell him the noodles are too small to poke. He gets mad. I offer suggestions of scooping, using hands...not helping. So he's mad that he can't poke the noodles and he's mad that I'm trying to help. Lose lose? Am I going to have to watch this for the next, oh, 20 years??? Probably.

I really am pretty good about letting him try what ever he wants, you know, just discovering by doing. I generally only step in when he is already frustrated. Sometimes there's just no winning :) But it can be entertaining to watch. No matter the amount of crying.

In other news, he has been promoted to 2 minute time outs (3 weeks early!) and I've invented the "bye-bye" bag. It's a black bag, up at the top of my closet, that he has to put toys in that he's thrown or used as a weapon. Pretty good, right??

Now for the weekend fun! One of my very dearest friends recently adopted a baby boy from Ethiopia! She and her husband just brought him home about a week ago. As luck would have it, they had a family wedding to attend nearby and they were able to stay with us for 2 nights! It was glorious! To see their sweet family all together, to see the joy in all of their faces! Love! Their baby just turned 1 a few weeks ago and he's really getting the hang of walking. So there was lots of playing and ball throwing around here. I wish we could have spent a bit more time with them, but we both worked friday and they had to leave this morning for the wedding. It was so special though. I feel like adopters are very brave. You never know what you're going to get. Not that you can predict anything about your biological child either, but you at least have control over how they are raised in their early months. But that's me, the control side I guess. Speaking of controlling, I was just at Old Navy and I saw a VERY small baby in a stroller with no socks. Hello! It's January! I literally had to turn away from them to keep from saying "where are her socks?! It's 50 degrees outside!!" sigh...I despise unsolicited advice...but I do not despise offering it ;)