I'm sitting here next to my second son, watching his favorite show. He smells nice. He has shampoo all over his hair. It looks greasy. But it smells nice. What's that you say? Why does he have shampoo all in his hair? Oh, that's just his daily routine of dumping out shampoo all over the bathroom, or at least the past two days, anyway. You'd think I would learn to keep things up and out of his reach. But we are talking a higher level of mischief that I have yet to figure out how to predict! His motivation usually includes amusing his brother or just plain old curiosity.
This post is for my own record keeping. And if any of you out there have any suggestions for me or see any patterns that I can't recognize, please share!!!
1. Getting into my mascara and "painting" with it. Found it a day or two later because he put it all nicely back together when he was finished.
2. Dumping baby powder all over the baby's room--soooo cliche, give me something with substance!!
3. Ingesting an unknown number of zinc supplement tablets--result: a tummy ache all day.
4. Getting into my Viactiv calcium chews. We were finding wrappers in his bed for weeks. (We finally put a child lock on the cabinet.)
5. Dumping out the gripe water on the kitchen floor. That stuff is like gold!! A lock was put on the fridge.
6. Pumping out all the hand soap into the sink. (I don't know how many times.) Sometimes it becomes a painting session all over the mirror. Sometimes it is a full-on bath in the sink! I made both boys run laps last night outside as a consequence.
7. Dumping out the healthy blueberry-pomegranate smoothy I made all over the kitchen floor, stamping purple hand prints on my wall, and skating around in it. Where was I, you ask? Well, one of the downfalls of living in a townhouse is all the floors. I was putting the baby to bed upstairs. The consequence: they were both put straight to bed, the next day they cleaned all three floors of toys, and spent an hour in solitary confinement.
8. Getting into my travel-sized deodorant and rubbing it all over his legs and face and carpet.
9. Getting into my lotions, countless times, and rubbing all over his face.
10. Getting into Burt's Bees coconut foot rub. He always smells nice, why am I complaining?
11. Getting into the toothpaste.
12. If it has a lid that screws off and has stuff inside it, he has dumped it out.
13. If there are treats of any sort tucked away on the counter, left over chocolates from Christmas, expensive chocolate I gave to Dave for Christmas, Andes Mints, Tic Tacs, or gum, the wrappers have been taken off and it has been ingested.
14. Ripping pages in books, destroying anything Charlie prizes, wrecking puzzles.
15. Peeing on the floor.
16. Dumping milk, splashing cereal, dumping jumbo-sized baby shampoo in the tub...
17. Waking up early in the morning, getting the camera, and taking countless pictures of his sleeping brother.
18. Getting into my lip stuff, digging it out and rubbing it all over.
19....I could keep going.
But let me just tell you about Pete's redeeming qualities. I often find myself defending him because I often think his is misunderstood.
1. He has empathy for someone feeling sad.
2. He has a sweet singing voice.
3. He is most affectionate and always has a wonderful, sincere hug and kiss for anyone who asks.
4. He snaps out of a bad mood in .5 seconds, wipes the tears away and says, "I'm fine!"
5. He shares so well.
6. He has very nice manners and remembers his salutations.
7. He has recently potty trained. He just figured it out one day. I don't have to remind him or ask him to go. It was so all of the sudden such that I have a whole bunch of size 5 diapers left over, which Rosie is getting good use of.
8. He is the best nose blower!
9. He always smells nice. (see reasons above)
10. When you ask who he is, he replies emphatically, "Peter John!"
11. He adores his other brother and younger sister.
12. His favorite color is yellow!
13. He is a tough cookie and takes most things like a man, including all of his consequences.
14. He responds so well to verbal praise and it just makes him beam with pride!
15. He tells me he is my "Sweet Pete"
16. He loves to snuggle.
17. He has a fascination with eye brows.
18. He connects to people on a personal level. Many people say they have a special connection with Pete.
19. This kid is a born professional wrestler.
20. He loves him some soy milk.
21. Life would be so dull without him.
3 comments:
I'm pretty sure you made up all the stuff at the beginning! ;) Ha. I only know the 2nd Pete. And you are right about all of that stuff. And he and I have the same favorite color! :)
Oh Shelly, I had no idea Pete was so... adventurous! He's always so sweet, you would never know! Bless your heart!
I would just call your local EI place and get him an eval to rule out Sensory Processing reasons for getting into stuff. (could be seeking a strong smell, or a visually clear space, or the feel of different substances on his hands... any number of things) Sounds a bit like one of mine; ok sounds a ton like him ;) He's my sweetie too though, so I hear ya.
Anyway, school districts all have a 0-3 clinic associated with them so if you can't find yours, call the district and they will refer you and the early intervention place will evaluate him at your house, for free by law, so there's nothing much to risk or lose. Call me anytime.
You're great.
me
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