A Mischievous Monkey

Monday morning, Linda Vaal and I were cleaning house. The bathroom floor was wet and Andrew walked through it and promptly slipped on my bedroom floor. I held him for a moment and then asked if a piece of chocolate would make him feel better. (what was I thinking?!) He calmed down and I gave him a small piece of pomegranate chocolate. In the next 10-20 minutes, he hurt himself three more times and came running to me suggesting he should get more chocolate.  A sly one he is.

Monday evening, he pulled out daddy's container of tuna-egg salad and asked to have that for dinner. But he wanted extra jalapenos in it.  After he ate two bowls of that, he said he wanted cereal. I asked, "do you want a big white bowl?" (as opposed to the small glass pyrex bowls he's eaten his cereal out of the rest of the time.)  He said, "Yes. I like big white bowls."  I said, "Just like you're daddy."  He said, "Yeah. He's smart."

He told me if he were a girl he wanted his name to be Jessica.  Then he said, "Where is Jessica?"  I said, "I dont know - WHO is Jessica?"  He raises his hand says, "I'm right here!" and laughs. 

Tuesday daddy took the day off so he could work on his blue truck and get some chores done on a pretty day. Andrew loves working on the truck with daddy, and he helped repot some plants, and plant some raspberry bushes.  We also took him strawberry picking which he enjoyed. He was very good at checking the whole berry to make sure it was red all over before picking.

Tuesday evening, we told him we had a present for him that he could have after showering. Apparently there was a fiasco in the shower of not obeying or being kind (we've had issues with that for several days now) and he was told he couldn't have the present. Andrew of course cried, and I reasoned with him about the importance of obeying. We read the scripture at Ephesians 6:1 and 5 about children being obedient to parents that it may go well with them. We disected the verses to make sure he got the point. He recalled that if you listen and obey, you will be blessed.  Then he cried, "I'm not blessed!"  I assured him he was, but told him that the opposite is true - that when he disobeys, things can go wrong. We came up with some examples together of how he could get hurt, get soap in his eyes, fall, etc if he doesn't listen to what mommy and daddy say.  He got the point.
Then a couple of minutes later, he really got the point.  He was pretending to cook pizza in his kitchen and when he gave a piece to daddy, he told daddy not to eat it.  Daddy did anyway and Andrew got upset. He told me he was upset because daddy ate the pizza. I said, "because Daddy didn't listen, he didn't obey?" It was like watching a light bulb go on in his head.
We secretly gave him a few chores to do to see how he'd respond and he reacted immediately, so daddy set the gift bag on the floor. Andrew didn't even notice it when he came back in the room.  We thanked him and told him since it appears that he understands and will work on listening better - we'd like him to have his present.  The look on his face was total surprise and he looked as if he might even cry.  We showed him the bag, and he started taking the tinsil off the top, "is this my present?"  We assured him that was just decoration, to keep digging.  He started tearing off the tissue paper and yelled, "It's my own Ipad!!"  He was genuinely excited and stunned. He thanked daddy and gave him a hug and daddy showed him the code to get into it. Then he sat down and started playing a game that teaches how to tell time. He often can read the clock anyway (or get pretty close), but this will help him fine tune his knowledge.  There are only educational games on his ipad.   After a few minutes of playing, daddy showed him how to plug in the charger and explained how to use it and let him try a few times. Then as he was walking back to the couch he softly tells himself, "I got my own ipad!" Still in amazement I guess.  (shoot! I don't even have my own ipad or iphone or anything cool!)  But I asked daddy to get something for Andrew to use as a computer, because half the keys on the keyboard of his toy one don't work. So Ted is going to get a keyboard to hook up to this ipad too so he can use it as a computer while I'm working on my computer.

Wednesday morning he comes to me half naked, "Mommy, you're out of toilet paper."  Hmmm. "I am?"  "Yes, you're out of toilet paper, c'mon I'll show you."  I start to follow him and in my bedroom doorway he turns and asks, "Are you going to spank my bare bottom?"  and then smiles at me. I said, "I hope I won't need to."  We walk into the bathroom and he shows me the roll of toilet paper. The entire new roll of toilet paper was unwound into the trash can. And three little squares had been used and in the toilet.  "See, you're out of toilet paper."   I dug it all back out of the trash and set it in a pile on the floor and told him that it was not okay - that it would be wasteful to throw it all away. *sigh*

Andrew discovered this week, and proudly announced, that he can unbuckle the chest latch of his seat belt.

He also was very proud of himself for buttoning his meeting pants and meeting coat all by himself.  I'm enjoying that he gets proud of himself for getting dressed. Though, for some reason lately, he's getting his underwear on backwards. I think it has more to do with he likes the pictures of the cars and you can see them better on the backside of them, but he puts the pictures in the front. Though he'll tell you the tag is supposed to go in the back.

He tries to hang on everything. He gets in trouble a lot for trying to hang on the doorknobs. Anything with a ledge, he hangs on. He gets to hang on the bar of the gazelle a lot.  But he's also starting to try and put everything around his neck - bags, strings, etc. I can't seem to instill in him the danger to that.