Evan is giving me a run for my money. Why am I so completely clueless as how to handle him? He is my fourth toddler! I should be an old pro by now, but alas, Evan isn't like the others. Being honest, I guess none of them were the same and I had to learn with all of them. Still, I'm frustrated.
We are having two major battles, one I seem to be winning, one not:
#1 Will Evan sleep all night? Finally? After almost 3 years? The answer lately is Maybe. My current solution is nothing less than bribery. If he will sleep all night... no, correction: if he will let me sleep all night, then Evan gets to have 5 or 10 minutes first thing in the morning to play on my iphone. He loves the iphone and plays games or youtubes or music for as long as I will let him. But he doesn't get it if he wakes me up, so he is getting creative. Lately he will wake up, take a blanket and pillow into Edie's room and sleep the rest of the night on her floor. Which is fine by me. He doesn't wake her up, he feels better, everyone is happy in the morning. Battle #1, almost over.
#2 Will Evan let me leave the house without him? The answer is No way, not without a major fit. This also applies to going to Nursery at church without me. For the last couple of months whenever he thinks I'm walking towards the door he shouts, "Wait for me! Don't leave!" over and over. If I do have to go somewhere without him, he cries and cries, which is sad for Pie who is usually staying with him. He throws a HUGE tantrum whenever it's time for Nursery which I can't understand because he has loved it for a year and a half and loves his teacher. They can't keep him in there like that so Pie usually takes him because I have other responsibilities during church time. It seems the only time Pie gets to spend with him, Evan is screaming. What is going on?? Anyone have any ideas? Is it just regular seperation anxiety a little later than normal? Pie and I talked about it today and are going to try out some ideas this week. But I'd like to get more opinions, especially if you used them on a cranky toddler and the problem magically disappeared.
But, as long as he's not screaming his head off, Evan is just as adorable as ever. I share with you one example of his cuteness: Last week Evan was opening a fun size package of starburst, the kind with 2 candies in it. One of the candies was red. I said, "Oh, red starburst is my favorite!" He thought for a second and said, "Here Mom. Do you want it? Say no thank you." Love it!
(This is my first attempt at uploading a video using blogger. Hopefully it will work. It's Evan rocking out to his current fave song, Slow Ride by Fogart, on the iphone)
