NO!

“No! Mommy!” and “No, Mommy!” have become very regular phrases in our household. But they are driving me bat-crap crazy, as I mentioned in my last post. Accompanied with aggression towards Daddy and it is the biggest headache, EVER. Although, I have been reassured that this is very normal for a two year old, it didn’t ease my concern at all.

It all started when our Buzz kitty died.  Right after, Otter started screaming and pushing away Doc when he’d get home from work. Of course, after a long day, this hurt his feelings.  Otter just wanted me and me only (C’mon, kid! Can’t you see I’m cooking?!). After doing some reading online Doc explained that is normal and that the burden is on me to redirect Otter to show affection to his Daddy, again. So, I would show more affection to Doc and encourage Otter to do the same.  I’d have talks with Otter to explain to him how awesome Daddy is and that he can help him do anything that I can do, too. But, I think the biggest thing to redirect Otter was several events or evenings alone with Doc. He’s doing much better, now.  When Doc gets home he’ll occasionally shy away or try to push his daddy away but he is much more willing to go play with him while I cook dinner rather than attaching himself to me. But we are still working on the telling us “no” part.

This, to me, is humiliating. Normal but humiliating. There is nothing are few things worse than standing in the middle of Target and asking your child to stand up or stay with mommy and have him shout “No!” back at you. I can just feel the stares of disapproving strangers who think he’s probably nothing more than a snot-nosed brat who gets away with misbehaving (and there’s me who’s thinking “Are you kidding me, Kid?”). Not true. My little boy is sweet and caring. He just so happens to be testing his language and boundaries.  After fighting my initial urge of yelling, “NO! Don’t use that word with Mommy” I calmly get on his level, repeat my request and help him follow through. Let’s face it, telling a toddler “no” to get him to stop saying “no” really isn’t going to help things and it’s probably going to confuse it.  Sure, this tactic doesn’t always work and I often find myself wanting to wallow around on the floor with him, crying, because neither of us are understanding each other in that moment, but I pick us both up and head out of the store.

I know this is going to continue being an uphill battle.  What will probably happen is we will head out for the holidays with a nice, sweet boy who doesn’t use the naughty “no” and once we reach the grandparent’s houses “no” will appear again in the vocabulary, making us both look like wretched parents. But we love him!

Anways, we went and saw Santa and Mrs. Clause. Otter was pretty excited and even pulled me by the hand to go see them.  Now that I think of it, I don’t think Otter asked for anything. It’s a good thing we can tell Chip, our Elf on the Shelf, what he’d like for Christmas!

Don't you be a turkey

Hey there!  I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving!  This is the first year in a quite a long time that we didn’t travel. Papaw visited and I prepared my first ever Thanksgiving feast. We had a good day.  Otter really enjoyed a visit from Papaw and is still taking about it several days later.

We also had a visit from a special Elf on the Shelf named Chip- as in Chocolate Chip.  The elf has been up to a few shenanigans. Otter doesn’t quite understand WHY Chip is here but he welcomes his company all the same.  I’ll post a few sneak peak photos, but will follow up the Christmas season with all the Chip has done.

We did our first Holiday related events, picked up our very first live Christmas tree which was promptly decorated.  Otter was really in to it.  However, he was having troubles placing the ornaments on the tree so he had a really good time handing me ornaments to put on the tree. We then went to a quick and chilly Fire Truck parade in a nearby village.  Otter loves fire trucks and was pretty thrilled by the experience, but if you asked him if he saw trucks or Santa, he will tell you “no”.

That leads me to the terrible two’s we are dealing with. Otter, has taken to telling us “no” always. This is incredibly frustrating. I understand that this is normal phase of a two year old, but Doc and I can’t help but be irritated when we ask our son to pick up his shoes and he yells “no” with a smile on his face. This, usually, leads to a time out because even when I offer another opportunity to do what we’ve asked he doesn’t budge and uses the naughty word, again. Seriously frustrating. Why do toddlers have to be so stubborn?!

Anyways, any suggestions on how to deal with phase would be openly welcomed.  We’ve got a nice weekend planned with a visit to Santa and maybe Otter will make a few Christmas presents for some of his grandparents.

The tree-partially decorated.

Chip with his milk and cookies

Chip in the tree

So, that was Christmas?!

OH.EM.GEE...so, that was Christmas?  Wow, we're exhausted...and sick. I don't even feel like Christmas even happened.  Sure, we opened a ton (too many- mom!) gifts and saw nearly every family member.  But each of our visits were extremely brief.  I feel like we spent more time in the car than we did with our families.  And on top of it all, there was not a single snow flake to be seen. 

On the bright side, Otter and his cousin, who is 5 months his senior, got to "play" together, finally.  When I say play, I really mean they were excited to see each other and then they started fighting.  Not horribly, but there was definitely some rivalry between them.  Otter became pretty protective of his toys and even pushed her once or twice.  I don't know if it's because she's a girl or if it's because she's smaller than him (she's a teeny tiny little doll :) ) but he wasn't going to let her do anything he didn't want her to do.  I've never seen him act like that.  I know they are toddlers, but I couldn't helped be a little embarrassed  frustrated by his actions toward her.  I'll have to figure out how to work on that.  Any advice (yes, this question is going out to my whopping TWO followers)?

We received many wonderful gifts.  Once again, my brother, "Uncle Allstate" knocked it out of the park with this Vetech kitchen and embroidered chef coat. Otter loves anything and everything kitchen related.  Otter's biggest gift fail was from me and doc.  He got a grill, per the reason just stated, but this thing is janky.  It took me a bajillion years (and some sore muscles the next day) to put it together and I'm really not impressed with the quality or the entertainment factor.  Sure, Otter likes to open and close the lid and doors, but there isn't much else for him to do with it. 

I think my family is really wanting everyone to get into the kitchen and cook...a lot of our gifts were geared toward the kitchen (or play kitchen).  I was really excited to receive the No Whine with Dinner cook book by the Meal Makeover Moms that I had my eye on.  I haven't had a lot of time to flip through it, but I did read through the 50 tips in the back to get your kids to eat.  LOVE THEM.  I can't wait to get my meals planned out for this next week.

Anyways, we are back home and trying to recuperate.  Doc is sick.  Like really sick, so we are happy to not have any huge plans for New Years. I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday and are all home and safe.  If you had any huge gift hits or flops, please feel free to comment and tell me about them!