Monkeys make a mess

I'm in the process of moving my images over to smugmug. So anything new I post will be up there but it may take a few days to get this done.

Some one said or maybe I read it somewhere, that the terrible twos aren't so much that as the autonomous twos. They start testing their limit and seeing how independant their allowed to be in the process trying the patience of parents. SO Alex and I had a battle of wills thursday morning. He took a cracker, crumbled it up and then dropped it on the floor. We had ants last year chances are we'll have them again this year but I'm not going to make it easy for them to find food. That means if Alex does something like that he's gonna help clean it up. We have a little wisk broom with our dustpan, so all he had to do was help sweep it up. This is something he usually likes to play with. Well because I was making him do it, he wanted nothing to do with it. I started taking things away. First the show he was watching, then I wouldn't let him go out side, I think the final blow was when I took away his blanket, monkey and juice. I kept explaining to him all he had to do was help me sweep up and he'd get everything back. Everytime I tried to guide him over , he'd drop to the ground, do the limp spaghetti thing, and cry. Finally I wrapped his hand around the broom, and showed him how to sweep up. Then he got everything back and we left for playgroup.

He spent the next hour and a half running around the playground. We all left for lunch, though we split into two group to go two different places didn't want to overrun any one place. I was supposed to go to Friendly's. And I know I know where this is. But pregnancy brain struck. I drove right past it because they changed the color of the sign. I spent the next twenty minutes thinking I had the location wrong so tried a couple other streets. Then decided to try one last time where I thought it was supposed to be. Low and behold it was right where it's supposed to be. They repainted and got a new sign. I really wasn't too late, seems the other mom's had issues of their own, a runaway child and a fall. I actually had to wake Alex. The funny thing was he had his blanket covering his head. Usually he does this as a game and as soon as I notice he takes it off. Guess I was too absorbed in being lost.

Either Alex is hitting a growth spurt so he's actually eating or he's okay with small groups and will eat. I notice when there are lots of people around or it's just adults he picks at his food. He ate about half of his mac and cheese (which he won't touch at home) all of his apple sauce and stole fries from both Riley and me. He also ate about half his hot fudge sunday. He did pick at dinner but he'd had waffles for breakfast so two pretty solid meals I wasn't expecting him to eat much dinner.

Actually yesterday he ate pretty well too. We'd gone to BJ's he spotted the stawberries so I had to get those for him. He spotted the cheese curls too. I think by the end of the weekend between Ken and Alex they'll be gone. Anyway he ate dinner even stole pieces of my salad. Three slices of yellow bell pepper and a few pieces of brocoli. I hope this continues, it's been very frustrating getting him to eat anything other than bread, rice and fruit along with the occasional vegitable.
Last night was very cute though.

After dinner he spotted the rose Ken had brought home for our anniversary Thursday. Ken had just gone out to turn on the sprinkler to water the section of lawn we reseeded. Alex wanted the rose. So I pulled it out of the vase thinking he just wanted to see it. He ran with it to the front door. I let him outside. He held it out to the water coming down from the sprinkler. "Flower grow big, water, flower grow big" Then I had to explain to him and show him that the vase had water for the flower so it could grow big. It was so sweet.