Nonsensical independence

My boy is growing up and now he has very strong feelings about many things, even if when his thoughts are, shall we say, ridiculous. Or as he says “Ri dick oo less!”

He fights us at every transition from one activity to the next. Yesterday we went swimming and it took him forever to finish playing with his trains to get ready to go swimming. And he LOVES swimming. I can understand not wanting to finish playing in order to go to bed, but it’s harder to understand when it’s swimming, one of his favorite things ever. Of course, we had another horrible transition when we got out of the water, then when we left the shower, another when we left the “warm room”, and finally, one when we left the building. I’m tempted to let him sit home all day every day when he’s like this.

If I left him at home as I thought about doing when he insisted on wearing his full outdoor clothing ensemble then he wouldn’t have seen his first movie, “Charlotte’s Web”, in a movie theater today. About 20 minutes into the movie he started holding my hand, a few minutes later he said in a soft little voice “I want to go home mama.” Then he started laughing hysterically when the rat was beaned by a rotten egg so I assumed he wanted to stay but no, a minute later I hear his tiny little voice say “I want to go home mama.” We left. He said it was too scary but I don’t think the movie was scary for him; I think the fact that it was loud, dark, and huge was just too overwhelming.

When he wants me to do something with him he’s also learned interesting methods for coaxing and cajoling me. His most recent is “I’ll give you five bucks” which I find highly entertaining and is a direct result of reading Mo Willems “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.” It’s a wonderfully fun book for little kids (and adults) so I highly recommend it, especially if you’re looking for ways to convince people to do things they shouldn’t. Wonder if it would work at work? “I bet your mom would let me do it!”

Wen he doesn’t get what he wants he does a mad little stomp dance (mad lsd, hee!) which we find highly amusing. Unfortunately it’s unpredictable so I haven’t gotten in on tape. We’ve also been practicing eye rolls to remove any power they might have to irritate me. He’s very good at them and every time he does it he roars with laughter. I bet it won’t seem so funny when he’s a teenager.

One thing his newfound desire for independence is doing is challenging me to find ways to get him to do what I want or need him to do without argument. I'm not very good at it; maybe I'm dreaming. Sometimes I have preconceived notions of what I'd like to accomplish and how I'd like to go about it. He has other priorities. I try to take some of his needs into consideration by doing the standard things such as giving him a five minute warning before we change from one activity to another but that doesn't really work. I set limits, he tests them daily. I need some creative movitators, any suggestions?

Much less of a challenge for me is that he's also growing physically. At his (one month late) three year checkup he was 39 1/2" (95th percentile) and 36 lbs (somewhere between the 70th and 90th percentile) so he's a big guy. Good thing he's outgrowing the desire to be carried!