This week, we started back to our fall schedule at Tangle. That means that one week I work 3 week days and one week I work 1 week day and the weekends. It’s a great schedule, but to say that Honor has been giving me fits while he is at the store with me, is an understatement.

I was pretty certain that once Eden started school, he would start behaving for me. To a degree it’s helped, but he’s still pretty dern naughty most the time we’re at the store. I was really hoping that he could just hang out with me while I worked, but he’s the kind of kid that can’t have my attention stolen from him for one second. Even if we’re in opposite rooms, the second there is the potential to steal away my attention, he’s gotta have ALL of it. Immediately. The big, giant, screaming fits just don’t fly, but he still tries.

I’ve started looking for preschools for him to attend, but so far most of them are only half days and I need a whole day. (I probably should have been doing this months ago… so much for my wishful thinking.) And I’ve been trying to ask friends too, but nothing thus far has worked out. And I just can’t stick him in a daycare.

I’m super frustrated and I don’t know what to do. Not having a solution stresses me out more than anything. And I just want to get along with my little kiddo. Being at odds with him is very unsettling.

Yesterday we were in Old Navy trying on a mountain of clothes for school. Honor only had one thing to try on (hello Old Navy, I don’t want to dress my almost 4 year old in teddy bears and clouds!) so he got restless quickly. Luckily I happened to be prepared and pulled a bag of health food animal cookies out of my purse.

He seemed to think this was the best thing ever and told me, “Mom, these cookies make naughty boys be good.”

“Mommy, Eden hit me.”

“Go tell Daddy.”

“No, I don’t wike to tell Daddy when me and Eden hit each other, he just says “good”.

(Honor, while we were driving by Best Buy.)

“A couple months ago, this used to be the toy store with real toys. But now it’s daddy’s toy store and it’s called Best Buy.”

“Did you just say ‘a couple months ago’?”

I just finished cutting Honor’s hair. It’s been long overdue, but I’ve been putting it off because it’s always such a traumatic experience. I tried a new technique today though. Bribery. I told him that if he didn’t throw a fit during his hair cut, that we’d go buy a transformer. Everything was going great when the clippers stopped working. I had Jim come take a look at them, he got them working and I proceeded to shave a huge spot out of the side of Honor’s head. OOOPS, I forgot to put the attachment back on the clippers.

Of course that couldn’t have felt good, so Honor started crying, I kept saying, “OH, NO!” (bad idea) and that was the end of the peaceful haircut. And now, the poor kid is sporting a very short cut. I feel like such a ding-dong.

“Honor, you’re so cute.”

“Mom, you’re so adorkable.”

Honor has taken latey to throwing major fits. Yesterday I had to insist that he wear shorts, as the weather around here is finally normalizing. He decided that he didn’t want to wear shorts. And proceded to whine and scream about it for an hour straight. I had a meeting at 10, so I had to drop the kids off at Jim’s office and Honor was still throwing a fit about his shorts.

Jim took him into the bathroom and they had a long talk. Honor came out not screaming and he and Jim told me what they talked about. “Boys don’t cry about shorts.” they told me. I guess that’s a good rule to live by.

Every so often, I let the kids take a bath with me. We’re nearing the end of this because Honor is starting to become aware of boobs. I swear, it’s hard wired into them.

Case in point: While in the bath the other day, Eden mentioned something about the fact that she has boobs. Honor told her, “Eden you don’t have boobs, you just have nickels.”

He also gave us a taste of what it’s really going to be like living with a little boy. He started leaning WAY over the tub and I thought he was picking something up that fell out. But he just stayed there, hands on the floor and butt up in the air. I finally started to ask him what he was doing when a 3 year old sized toot escaped his buns, followed closely by hilarious giggles. Yep, this boy thing is going to be fun.

I finished this last week, but I just haven’t found Honor, the sweater and the camera in the same room together.

I’m really happy with how this sweater turned out. Although, I did have a few issues with carrying the yarn (really, who wants to weave in all those ends?), I seem to have pulled it off. My favorite part was making the skull applique. I’m not convinced that the cheap-o felt will hold up, but I figure that at 20 cents a sheet I can just make him a new one when it wears out. I’m also toying with the idea of ironing interfacing to the back of tee shirt material and making an applique from that.

Stats:
Yarn: GGH Samoa – 2 balls of brown (I think?) and 3 balls of blue
Pattern: Knitting Pure and Simple Child’s Pullover
Needles: US size 9 denise and addi turbos

beep, beep, beep

beep, beep, beep

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP

“Mom, the food needs you.”