Random musings

Theo has blossomed with his language recently. He repeats many of the things we say, often multiple times. He labels most things he sees and is surprisingly accurate with his pronunciation and descriptions. Beckett has markedly quieted since Theo started talking more. I wonder if it is because he had been the spokesman of the group and now his role is less certain to him. Beck certainly is crankier than Theo at this moment. Theo has learned just to give in because Beck can be such a pain when he wants something he doesn't have--throwing himself on the ground, crying, flailing, kicking, and shouting. Even sometimes after he gets whatever it was he wants, he can't calm himself down. I think some of it has to do with being tired or hungry, because it is definitely worse right before lunch and right before dinner, and also sometimes right before bedtime at night when he is very tired. Theo is definitely the easier and more relaxed guy these days. I often work with them to clean up their toys when they've taken out a bag of blocks or puzzles or something. Beck will have to be coaxed repeatedly to put even one piece away, and even then he sometimes throws the item with such force that it doesn't go into the receptacle. Theo, meanwhile, will be steadily finding all the pieces and calmly putting them away, then zipping up the bag or snapping on the top, with no supervision by me.

Time outs are getting much harder to manage. There was a long while there (from at least as early as 18 months) when we would tell Theo or Beckett that he was in time-out, and he would sit on the stair or against the wall, still and quiet, and wait til we came over to release him ("you are in time out because ___. Please say you're sorry. I love you.--A LA SUPERNANNY). Time outs now are a total nightmare. The one who has been ordered to time out laughs all the way to the naughty step (we're trying to use the same place all the time now), then before he has even been effectively deposited there, he is squirming his way away, challenging us to track him down and put him back. This often goes on for five or ten minutes. To add to the chaos, the one who is not in timeout nearly always follows the time-out boy to time-out and eggs him on, pushing him, laughing at his antics, or, maddening still, sits quietly with him. There is almost never a time when the time-out boy actually sits quietly for two minutes (the Supernanny rule is one minute for every year of age, so T&B get two minutes). But the repeated dragging back and then, often, forcibly holding him down to the naughty step, might take five or ten minutes. We need some help to find a better way to institute some calm-down time, because what we're doing now only seems to escalate the problem.

Theo continues to be a champ eater, trying almost anything I put in front of him and maintaining a much wider variety of foods regularly consumed. Beck is still a mostly white-and-brown foods dude, with some berries mixed in. When presented with a new food, Beck still often waits for Theo to try it before letting it pass his lips. I can become discouraged about Beck's lack of diet variety or his reticence to try new foods, but it's hard to blame myself because my other test case, Theo, behaves so differently. I have to remind myself to just keep offering vegetables and new foods, and adopting as my mantra "You don't have to like it, but you do have to try it." Which I am trying to enforce with the number one picky eater in our house, Daddy Lovebo. If you see him, please repeat with me: "You don't have to like it, but you do have to try it."