We've tried one of those fancy clocks that lights up a different color when he can leave the room, he doesn't care. So bascially we have a kid who already only needs 8 hours of sleep at night, which means we are only getting about 6. We also have this great sliding door now for Chase's room that Laura thought of and my Dad constructed. Couple of problems: Chase can get out, and it is extremely loud when he slides that door open. So at 5 AM, my alarm clock is that stupid sliding door.
This past weekend, Laura and Miles headed down to Kansas to welcome Corey back from Iraq. So that meant Chase and I headed to Ames for a double header weekend. A little football and basketball. On the way to the football game Saturday, Chase took a little nap. Little did I know that waking him from that nap was going to lead to the biggest meltdown I had ever seen.
It started with me trying to put a stocking cap on him. This set him off and the crying began. So I dragged him out of the car and put him on the sidewalk wailing. He immediately ripped his hat and jacket off. Realize that it is 45 degrees out with a 30 MPH wind. Then as a parent you start dipping into your bag of tricks to make something work.
- Start with asking nicely. "Don't you want to go to the football game, see grandma and grandpa" Chase's response was a lot of screaming
- Move on to force. Just pick him up and start walking. It's amazing how kids can contort their bodies to try to wiggle out of your hands. It involves arching the back, going limp, kicking you where it counts, all while screaming as loud as possible.
- Try to make him laugh. This involved me trying to run my head into a mailbox. Because my pain gives my son joy. Didn't work.
- Just ignore and try to wait it out. We did this on the corner of the street as people walked by. Just to give a little context this sidewalk was right next to a busy highway. Chase's response was to try and shove me in front of traffic. I tried to explain that this would hurt and possibly kill his dad. This made him push me harder.
- Take him away from everyone and leave him alone: So we went back to the car, I put him in the back seat, turned on the heat, and then just let him calm down. After about 10 minutes he decided maybe we should go to the game. The joys of a 2 year old.
Finally, it was a little bit of a scramble putting together the Halloween costumes this year. We tried this one on Chase.
He wasn't buying it. He wouldn't even try it on. (Quick sidenote - doesn't Laura remind you of Justin Timberlake in the SNL skits. If you haven't seen them, look it up on youtube.) So we decided to go simple. Since he was a baseball player last year, and we still had the pants and a football jersey. We went with this costume.
One problem, we used the same pants from last year. Chase has grown slightly from last year, so we told him he couldn't bend over.
Oh, and what was Miles you are asking.
He was a banana. And not just any banana, he was a dog costume banana. He didn't seem to mind. Trick or treating went much better than last year, which is probably described like 4 posts ago since I have been so lazy with this. Chase went to about 15 houses, said trick or treat and thank you. Mostly he just wanted to run up the middle of the street though. So we were out about an hour headed home and then Laura and I have been eating his candy.
Until next time...
