Sweet Angel or Devil Child? - You be the Judge!And I'm sure they're going to get worse.
But let it just stand for the record that Bunky, heretofore the Ultimate Cuteness of the Universe, has unleashed his demonspawn side, the Unholy Freaking Terror of the Universe, at least once per day, usually twice. It seems to replace the time of day when he is/was most smiling, most cheerful, most excited to see you... wake-up time.
Now we're lucky if mommy gets a breakfast that stays in the bowl and not splattered across the kitchen, because gawd forbid I try to put him down, point to the wrong cereal box, pick the wrong color bowl, suggest "tete" (milk) instead of juice or juice from the carton instead of a juice box, and - heaven help us - the wrong identical Dwink(tm) holder on the left instead of the one on the right; or not give in to wanting a "dookie" (cookie) first thing after waking up, though I'm happy to suggest it after a nap when he'd rather have peaches or yogurt or something he's not supposed to have, and gawd NO NO NO do NOT put pajama pants on after you put the shirt on, no, they have to go on first (or some illogic like that).
It's really all a communication battle - he wants something specific and can't tell (or show) me, and if I get it wrong then he goes into LDM - lock-down mode - in which nothing but nothing is acceptable, not even the thing he wanted in the first place. Once in LDM he gets his underwear in a bundle so tight he can't even reason with himself which thereby increases LDM and mamma's anxt and the neighborhood watch gets called in and pretty soon the house is surrounded by SWAT sharpshooters.
Okay I exaggerated that last bit a little, the SWAT guys know our address by heart by now and don't bother coming to my rescue.
Anyway, on the plus side, he is talking a lot more, and by "talking" I mean stringing up to four or five somewhat vaguely recognizable words together into sentences, though honestly most of the time I haven't a clue what he is saying unless there's some context or he's attempting to mimic something someone said. "Lid up, pants down, sit on the potty" becomes "li-uh, pa' down, depedo boddy" usually with a big smile.
And don't get any ideas, we are not even thinking of potty training yet. Okay, thinking, dreaming, maybe even fantasizing a little bit about a future without diapers, but not trying, really. Since he mimics everything we just have him go through the routine on his own little potty whenever we do it, so that it's not such a shock when we're stressing him out and putting tons of pressure on him to perform the other (important) part.
First, though, the little devil is going to have to learn to predict his pee-pees and poo-poos and not make duties in the bathtub because butt bubbles are so much fun!!! Ah, little boys.
Gotta love 'm.
Neglected children everywhere will one day get to say, "My mom wrote a novel." Fintan is no exception.
He'll also get to say "My mom climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro when there was still snow on it." I'm so proud of him!