Boot Envy

Who woulda guessed that one pair of boots had so much power?

Last week my friend Jennifer loaned me some clothes for GG. In one bag was a pair of boots. From the moment my boy saw those boots, he was in love. He proudly put them on and paraded around, finally testing them out in the garden, stepping on over rows of emerging bean plants.

Tonight he's been anti-Daddy. We're not pushing it terribly hard, but we're making it enticing. I stayed inside where life is BORING. Daddy and LilDude went outside. After awhile, LilDude came in and traipsed down the hallway in his BOOTS. GG immediately wanted to go get his boots on, too. But boots go with outside which goes with Daddy. He had quite the conflict...get the boots and get Daddy, or stick with Mommy and have boot envy.

The boots and Daddy won.


GG is amusing me. We're slowly moving from behavior based on fear to behavior based on "I'm a 3yo and 3yo's want to do whatever they like!" Last night he goofed around in bed for over an hour (with me supervising) until Daddy lay down with one hand on his back and he feel asleep in 15 minutes. Today's naptime was a similar experience. He was really tired, having gone to sleep too late and woken up too early. He didn't seem at all frightened to be alone in his bed, so I lay him down (with the door open) alone. We spent about an hour with me repeatedly returning him to his bed. I didn't fuss or say anything. I just calmly picked him up and put him back in bed. After he took himself to the potty twice, I finally wised up and locked the bathroom doors. By the end of the hour he was weeping a few "Mom is annoying me to death" tears, but they definitely weren't tears of fear.

I think we're both going to be ready for an early bedtime. GG from lack of sleep. Me from carrying him back to bed so many times.

P.S. GG does not like asparagus, Swiss Chard bake, or strawberries...aka dinner. But he didn't want hot rice cereal either, so maybe he just isn't hungry. He impressed us mightily, however, by using the kid sized chopsticks we bought. He was clearly more chopstick-coordinated than me. I have chopstick envy.