::careless::

Max has had quite the afternoon. He's done all sorts of things that have driven me nuts.

He found a big long rope of Kris's (much to my chagrin) and dragged it around the yard, knocking things over as he went.

He somehow pulled a big splintered strip up out of one of the deck boards. It was "the rope's fault!"

He pulled over our lame charcoal BBQ and dumped all the charcoal dust out all over our little cement patio.

Then he kicked the dust all around after I told him to stay far far away from it.

He knocked down a set of blinds in a room he had no reason to even be in, much less be in there adjusting the blinds.

He spilled milk all over the living room rug. This is really my fault because I was letting him eat dinner in the living room, and I gave him the milk. I didn't give him much and I told him specifically to be very careful. Hah. Dumb me.

All I wanted to do was yell. And I have to admit that I did. And I banished him outdoors. He was happy to be outside until banished. Then it was cruel and unusual punishment.

I have a feeling this thoughtlessness is just part of being a kid. And maybe especially being a little boy. But what can I do (besides yelling) to get him to open up his eyes and his ears? How can I positively encourage him to take some care? Any ideas from you more experienced parents out there?

::now we are six::

Our little boy is SIX today! I can't even believe it. He's so tall and just looks like such a big boy.
Ready for a little retrospective? This is especially for Kris since he's in RI and we're in UT. He missed out on our little birthday activities today--even though we had the real party and festivities on saturday. Anyway, here's a fun (quick) little trip down memory lane. These pictures should be all on his birthday, except the first one.
0 years old:

(awwww, so fresh and new!!)
1 year old:

2 years old:

3 years old:

4 years old:

5 years old:

And 6 years old!!!!! (this picture is from the party, not from today, but that's ok)

Happy birthday to my little boy!!!! Even though he told me I ruined his birthday because I yelled at him for being disobedient. Unfortunately I had to destroy his conviction that birthdays=no problems, consequences or discipline. "That's not the way it works! You shouldn't yell at me on my birthday." I told him he shouldn't be a bum on his birthday.
Isn't it fun to be the mom? Sometimes so rewarding, sometimes so frustrating.
But anyway, we had a fun day and I don't think it was really ruined.

::family portrait::

This was drawn sometime in July. It's a portrait of Bad Max's family.
Man, don't they look so bad? And sad? And doesn't the little brother look bad too? Yikes.

::outrageous::

I've been fighting a battle with Max for oh such a long time.
It's been going on ever since he was finally toilet trained.
The man just doesn't like to wash his hands. I'm sure this is something that other little boys (maybe all little kids) can identify with. I mean, washing your hands is a ton of work.
But as all the moms out there I'm sure would agree, it must must must be done.

So as he's gotten older I've ceased to supervise his every little bathroom visit, and kind of trust (and by that I just mean hope) that he's doing what he's supposed to. Well, I always remind him to wash, or when he comes out I ask if he's done it.
For a while he was trying to be sneaky and go to the bathroom silently. He'd sneak out without flushing so nobody would know he'd done it and he wouldn't be forced to wash. I love finding surprises in the toilet. Ewwww.

So we've pretty much gotten him to stop that.

BUT.

Often I'll ask him if he's washed, and he says yes. For a while he was saying yes and it wasn't true, so I always ask to feel his hands to see if they feel wetish.
So he'll let me feel them. Sometimes he's had such a weird expression on his face though. I knew something was up, I just didn't know what. I was hoping it was nothing serious.

Today he took a bathroom break before lunch. Something I was doing took me in there just as he had flushed. Guess what I found? A kid dipping his hands in the toilet water. He jumped away quickly with the most guilty look on his face.
I knew immediately what had been going on! So those little "washed" wet hands that had touched me so many times had been dipped in toilet water! ARRRGHAHHHH! Hopefully, like today it was after the flush. I can only hope.
Who knows how long this has been going on.

So I'm looking forward to Kris getting home. We're going to have to devise a punishment that fits the crime.
I'm thinking something having to do with swirlys?

::::

Do you want to see what we were up to yesterday while Kris was at work?
Check it out. It's awesome.



(and for more stuff like this go here)

::::

::what i heard::

So the other day I saw that I had a couple of voicemails from Kris on my phone.  This was odd, since it was saturday, and we'd been together all day. Hmmm I thought. Then I listened.

Here's what I heard.


Voicemail 1 from Ginna Hendricks on Vimeo.

Wow, good to know, right? I'm really glad that the phone's ok, and so glad to know Max was going around dropping it.
And then the next message.


Voicemail from Ginna Hendricks on Vimeo.

And how could I be mad at the guy that left me that message? Honestly it's pretty much impossible. Lucky for him.

::NYC day 5::

Shopping in Manhattan....
Turns out Kris had the day off tuesday--but he didn't find out until he'd already headed over to the hospital. It was happy news when he called us and told us he was on his way home.
Once I got Max to get dressed, which took until about 10AM we headed out to Manhattan to do some shopping.
When Kris was interviewing for this program he had somehow found a camping store in the middle of the financial district. He wanted to head back there and see if they had a good coat for him. So we went. This store turned out to be very much the wrong place for Max. It was packed to the gills with stuff, and very narrow and claustrophobic. The kind of obstinate attitude he started out the morning with stayed with him, unfortunately, and he ended up throwing a couple of pretty immense fits in the middle of the store--then out on the steps of the store, which was very entertaining to passers-by, but really embarrassing for me.
The first one was because I wouldn't let him pull all the coats down on his head, and the second was because I wouldn't let him turn the spinning cabinet with the watches in it so fast that it fell over. I'm so mean, right?
We finally got done there, Kris found a great deal on a good coat and we headed to lunch. At lunch Max promised he'd be better. But you know, when the day starts out like that, everybody's a little peeved.
But he did try harder after that.
We were supposed to meet up with some people from the program for cupcakes after lunch, but that didn't work out, so we just went and got cupcakes on our own, and carried them out hoping to eat them somewhere in central park.

Unfortunately for us, the rain started just about then. We ran for some scaffolding, along with half the city and tried to wait it out. But it just kept on going. We watched some poor man try to hail a cab for about 20 minutes straight with no success. Max was very interested, and kept wondering why the cash cab didn't stop. After that Max kept practicing his cab hailing hand movements. It was really funny.
We ate our cupcakes while we were sitting on the curb. When the rain finally let up a bit we ran for the subway and headed downtown towards Rockefeller Center.
It was interesting to see the difference between the subway station there in Rockefeller Center versus the rest of the city. It was a really big difference. Much nicer there, much cruddier everywhere else. Hmmm, I wonder if they care about impressing tourists and such?
Anyway, we just went down there so we could go to FAO Schwarz. Well, with a stop at H&M along the way where I picked up a couple of great shirts.

Max was delighted with FAO Schwartz.
He was super excited when he found this huge playmobil guy.





But of course he didn't want to stay in the playmobil section too long, because what if he missed something somewhere else? He ran from thing to thing to thing. Just how he likes it.
We found the big piano and he got to try it. He loved it of course.



I'm just really sad the below picture isn't in better focus. Can you see that he's leaping? Both his feet are off the ground. It's so cute.

Getting him out of the store was QUITE the difficult task, but we finally dragged him out, kicking and screaming.
Kris and I were both exhausted, so we headed back to our place by way of 5 Guys Burgers of course, and put Max to bed.
Sometimes that's just the best part of the day.