Mr. Mischievious

Charlie has been Mr. Mischievous lately. Here's what I mean.

~A few days ago, while Chance and I were sitting at the table eating spaghetti, Charlie crawled under the table and was quiet for a few minutes. While he was literally at my feet, he was dumping out the parmesan cheese and playing in it. See his hand print? Also, notice the jump rope he's managed to tie securely to our table's leg.



~Everytime I turn around, I find a new mess he's made. He has emptied drawers of clothes, gotten screws and bolts and scattered them, etc. I feel like I cannot leave him unattended for even a minute! You'd think he was a 6 month old, not a 3 1/2 year old.

~Potty training: Everytime we're home I make him go diaperless so he'll use the potty. Well, he's also hidden behind the couch and peed on the floor, and yesterday he found a bowl and peed in that instead. Now he begs to wear diapers, but I'm holding my ground. He's plenty capable to do it, so we're just gonna bite the bullet and force it now.

~And let me tell you about yesterday. Being the 4th of July, Chuck was home from work, so he took Charlie to see Ratatouille at the movie theater. Charlie had been acting hyper all day so I didn't make him take a nap. Big mistake. One hour into the movie he starts crying to go home. Then he throws an all out fit in the theater because Chuck won't let him play arcades. So on the way home he falls asleep, and we put him in bed. That was at 6:30 PM.



We thought maybe he'd sleep thru the night, but at 10 PM he woke up due to loud fireworks outside. So I let him sleep in our room on a pallet.

I went to bed at 11, only to have him wake me at 11:30, saying he needed me to put his diaper back on since he took it off to go potty. He then takes it right back off and goes again. Repeat this times three, then I tell him to put on a pull up so he can put it back on himself.

At midnight he wakes me because his leg's hurting (growing pains?). I massage it, he goes back to sleep.

1 AM, the leg hurts again, so I tell him to walk around and eat a banana (potassium deficiency maybe?).

2 AM I wake up because he's playing in things around our room. He's rolled up a rug, and now he's getting into Chuck's chess set that he knows is off limits. So I put on Toy Story and tell him to watch it (since he's wide awake), then come back to bed.

3 AM he wants me to fix him a bowl of cereal. I tell him to just eat it dry.

4 AM I wake up to check on him, and find that he's pulled over the barstool to climb on top of the fridge in order to get into the candy. Big NO NO with those almost-abscessed teeth! There are candy wrappers all over the house. I tell him to go get in his own bed, so he throws a big fit, gets a spanking and FINALLY goes to sleep.

And I had to get up at 5:30 AM to go run, so it wasn't a good night. :(



~He's been breaking all the rules lately. There are so many things that he truly knows not to do that he's been doing. Talk about testing his boundaries...again!! I just don't get it...I'm so weary of disciplining him with time outs, spankings, etc. And I'm having a harder time staying cool, because the discipline doesn't even seem to sink in. I often have to repeat myself a few times when I tell him something because it's like he doesn't even hear me.

Sorry if this is all venting, but the terrible 3's are really killing me lately ;)

~One funny story. Charlie had some legos that he said was a gun, and was shooting it around. Then he said it was an ice cream and pretended to eat it. The best part: "Mommy, this is my ice cream...but it doesn't have any sugar!" Even his imaginary food is sugarless!

~And some good news. Next Wednesday Charlie is scheduled to have his dental work done in the hospital! I cannot wait to get that behind us, and be able to have a little sugar every now and then. Although I must say, this has made me realize how I was way too lenient before, and how he eats more now that he's not full on sugar. So it's been a good experience in that respect.