Travelations!!

One of the Kroger grocery stores in town has kid sized shopping carts. So whenever we got to that store, I let Andrew pick out his cart and we use that to shop with. I'm shocked at how much I can stuff in one of those tiny carts. Last week, I was picking up some organic soups and behind me were all the snacks. He picked up a bag of sweet potato and beets chips and asked if he could have them. I  looked at the bag and told him yes he could put them in the cart. A few seconds later he hands me a bag of sweet potato chips and asks if he can have those too.  I held up both bags and I said, 'you can choose one. We don't need both. Just choose one."  So he picked one, put it in the cart, and put the other bag back on the shelf.  Somehow, though, when we went to checkout - I ended up buying both bags of chips.
  This week, he was trying to be all sorts of helpful in picking out things to add to the cart. I caught the sweet potato chips this time, and he asked about the organic cookies instead of just grabbing them. He tried to pick out a "chicken" but the turkey was too heavy for him - but I ended up getting one anyway since I have to cook one for a memorial service this weekend, so that actually was helpful. I got distracted by a potential photography prop when he discovered a stand with glazed donuts. First I said that we don't need those, but then he begged and put them in the cart. I just shook my head at myself and moved along.  In the next aisle he had the freezer open and was digging for ice cream. "But I need my ice cream!"  He was good and didn't fight me on it and we were able to leave without any frozen desserts.

Tuesday morning he was playing games on daddy's ipad when I asked him if he'd like to shower with me. (of course not) He didn't want me to close the door though so I had to coax him into sitting on the floor in the bathroom so I could still run the heater to make the room warm.  His hair stands on end with the exception of the day he showers and it gets wet. Even aloe vera gel won't keep it down all the way.  I have some "natural" but still toxic hair gel and I decided to put a blob in my hand, add some water, and put it in his hair. He totally flipped out on me. I showed him the container and tried to convince him that it was okay and that it is for hair.  He insisted he now needed to shower and get this goo out of his hair.  He wasn't going to have it any other way and I decided to lose that battle and let him shower but I did let him know that I was not happy with how he was behaving. 
  We were now barely on time to leave for school. I just had to brush my teeth and get his shoes on his feet. As I'm finishing up brushing my teeth, I hear a womans voice, "is your mommy there?"  and Andrew talking.  He answered my phone!  He was talking to one of my clients!  (which of course I then got stuck on the phone which made us late leaving)
   While I was on that phone call, he put a long narrow cardboard box (Ted cut eye and arm holes out for him) over his head. He accidentally got it on backwards though and now could not move or see and he started screaming. I asked my client to hold and got Andrew to calm down.  Then he proceeded to stick five "I've been Krogering" stickers to the office floor while I was still trying to help my client. I didn't have time to unstick them once I got off the phone - so glad they came off!

  Tuesday afternoon I went to get him from school. Right after I got there, he grabbed my hand and asked me to please come sit with him as he walked me to their circle rug. The teacher sat down as did most of the children. She then asked how to spell the word 'love' by sounding out each letter. She had a big piece of paper and wrote the letters L O V E across the top as the kids helped her decide the letters. Then they were asked if they did anything today that showed love toward someone else.... the kids came up with playing together, helping each other, and making another one happy as ways of showing love.  Then they were given a sheet of paper, asked who they showed love to/with, and then asked to draw a picture of what they did together with that person.  Andrew and Ella played 'Big Bad Wolf' together so that was their assignment.  The first thing Andrew did was write perfectly L O V E across the middle of the paper!! I was blown away! I know he can write most of his letters, but I've never seen him write a word before.  Ella (she's older than Andrew)  drew a house and made Andrew the wolf on the outside and her as the pig inside.  Then Andrew drew some grass and she drew the sun.  Ella wrote her name on the house and I asked Andrew if he'd like to write his name across the bottom.  He asked for the letters to write and I told him. But instead of writing them in a straight line, he kept trying to individually write the letter somewhere on the page. I had to keep moving his marker to the space where he should write it.  Anyway, I was proud that Andrew wrote the word Love so well.

Thursday Andrew asked me if he could play outside. I consented and went over the rules about staying in the yard, off the fence, to come get me if anyone tries to talk to him at the fence, etc. I was trying to clean house and would check out the door or window every few minutes. I did have to call him out from under the pine trees once. He was following Flash around. The next time I look, I see Flash run up the tree by the house and Andrew looking puzzled. He calls to Flash a few times and then comes up the deck and to the back door. "Mommy, Flash is up in the tree."  "It's okay honey."  "Well can you come out and get him down?"   "No. He'll get down when he's ready."  Andrew walks back outside and talks to Flash again.  Then I see him put his hands on either side of the tree and try to step up. No success. He takes a few steps back and looks up at the tree again. Now Flash jumps down and runs under the deck by going between two steps. Then Andrew goes to the step, turns around and tries to get both feet under and through. After a couple of attempts, he realized he was too big to fit between the steps and finally just runs around the side.  He continued to follow Flash around under the deck, out and around the pool. Finally Flash jumped over the fence into the driveway.  Andrew didn't know I was outside on the deck watching him.  He reached through the fence and tried to touch a few things. Then he saw a branch with leaves on it off to the side and he ran and jumped in it. Then he hurled about five rocks over the fence (I'm guessing he picked them up by the pool earlier.)  Then he threw a ball at the fence, then threw it again making it go over.  Then he stood there by the fence looking absolutely bored and lost with no one to play with.

  Thursday evening Ted change the oil in the car and I suggested he let Andrew help him drive the car back into the spot in the driveway.  Andrew came running in and yelled, "Travelations!! I just drove the car."    "Wow! Was daddy with you?"   "yes"    "Oh good, because we never want to drive the car without mommy or daddy with us, right?"  "Exactly."     
Ted came in after and said Andrew was supposed to tell me he was ready for his driver's license.

I was telling him that we might get to go eat at Amigo's Saturday night with the Perrys.  "Mommy, where is Amingos?"   "You know where Amigo's is. It's over by Target."   "No it's not. It's by Jet's Pizza."   Sheesh... he's more accurate than I am. It is next to Jet's Pizza ... across the huge parking lot from Target. 

It was a couple of months ago that Andrew had a meltdown insisting that he didn't need diapers at night anymore. We tried it diaper-free a couple of times but it wasn't as successful as we'd all hoped. So a few times I compromised and let him keep his underwear on but I still put a diaper on over it. Every night, he'd still say, "I don't need a diaper!" So Ted finally told him, if he can stay dry seven nights in a row - we won't put diapers on him anymore.  He made it!  Wednesday night was night seven and he was dry Thursday morning!! Though I did wake up to him yelling frantically, "I need to go poo!"  Ted had put him back to bed earlier in the morning so he was afraid he wasn't allowed out of bed.  So we've now explained to him (again) that anytime he needs to go to the bathroom, he can get up and go - just don't come get mommy and then go back to bed if it's dark.  We'll see how long it takes for that to sink in. 

I haven't worked with him on it in a while, but he knows all the books of the bible in order from Genesis to Psalms. He has been asking me lately what comes next. So he's working on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. 

He has almost mastered the snaps on his pants. Sometimes he needs help getting it to stay closed, but he got it pretty quickly I think. Sometimes he can get his socks on by himself and other times he needs help. And his meeting socks - he prefers to be all the way up, not folded over.  And he does not want to wear meeting socks any other time - only to meetings.  And he always has an opinion about what he will wear.

We have trouble with one of our living room lights suddenly blinking like a disco. Andrew has discovered that everything blinks when he opens and closes his eyes really fast. He likes walking around blinking his eyes.

Ted thought it worthy to mention that Andrew has actually been cooperative since he stated that he would no longer be difficult. He's kept his word so far. 

He is officially POTTY TRAINED!! No more diapers at night!  Ted told him if he goes 7 nights staying dry, he'd not have to wear diapers anymore. He did it!  Thursday night was night 7. 

Friday evening we had to drive up to Celina,Tn to pick up a truck Ted was buying. Ted thought it best we not take Andrew along. I tried to find a friend for him to stay with but it didn't work out, so Nana graciously allowed us to leave Andrew there overnight. I am so thankful we did! She said he was absolutely delightful, agreeable and polite being his usual sweet self. We on the otherhand had no cell phone service, it took 20 minutes to find the motel in the pitch black, it was freezing cold inside, no hot water either.  We got little sleep before heading to the car lot - where we encountered just an unknowledgeable secretary of the misleading and lying car dealer who wouldn't even show up.  After an hour of being there, we finally get on our way only to have the truck die and leave us stranded on the side of the interstate for over an hour waiting for a tow truck. I'm so glad Andrew was not along for that.  I'm sure he had more fun at Nana's anyway and got to play with his cousins for a little while too.
He fell asleep in the car on the way home, I brought him inside when he woke up but he didn't want to let go of me. So I sat in the recliner and he fell asleep again on me for another hour.  We got up, showered and left again to go to a memorial service dinner (we missed the funeral) and ended up missing dinner too since everyone had already eaten by the time we got there.  But - the Perry family was there and Andrew had a blast running around playing with them. Then we went to Amigos to have some dinner and got to be with the Perry's longer.  Amber collected some quarters and asked if Andrew could get a toy with them from the vending machine. I said yes to the toy - but he came back with a handful of m&ms.  I didn't take them away from him, but knew I'd regret it.
 Sure enough... Sunday he was disagreeable, defiant, headstrong, emotional, sassy, mean, and fighting us every step of the way over everything. That's what food coloring does to him. It was exhausting.

Monday morning I was adding all the 4T pants to his closet and he was standing on his toy box throwing a ball into his basketball hoop. Each time I handed the ball back to him, he said, "Thank you Princess Mommy! Thank you for giving the ball back to me."