The Mind Of a Toddler: Strange Bedtime Requests

I like to try to keep track of some of the crazy stuff my son does and says throughout the month and then look back at it and laugh.  I started blogging it a couple months ago, and I am pleased at the response.  Please feel free to share your own toddler antics here!  Enjoy!

Liam just told me that he peed in his pants and then I pulled them off him really fast and they were dry. I asked him about 5 times "did you really pee in your pants?" He told me yes every time. After I got his pants off he ran off giggling and is now playing pant-less with a firetruck in glee..... Boys.... 

I take my child to have ice cream at McDonald's and play at the playplace and he wants to hangout and eat apples haha.  This can't be my child, Ice Cream should trump everything!

Before bed one night, Liam had three book choices so I asked him to pick one.
He says "No mom, you pick one"
So I did and he said "No mom pick one"
So I pick a second one and get told told "No pick one"
So finally I selected the third one and he said "Yeah mom, good job"
Apparently I really didn't have any choice in the matter after all haha.  (And they say girls are difficult)

Liam's new favorite mealtime activity is to sneak over and try to grab as much of one thing on my plate as he can and shove it into his mouth or drink all of my drink. He then runs away in glee taunting me with "I ate/drank it all mom" then he comes over hugs me and gives me a kiss. We have the exact same thing on both of our plates. Although I am happy that he is eating his fill, he tried to eat all of my food first before he eats his own. Needless to say "mommy" doesn't find it quite so humorous and Liam has lost his Pingu watching privilege for the remainder of the meal. Plus side, it helps me eat less... Downside Liam sucks at staying seated while eating. Oh the joys of motherhood.....

I made Liam a sandwich a couple of days with Boy Choy, Miracle Whip, Roast Beef & Smoked Butterkase cheese. Every day since then he has asked me for the sandwich with the green haha. At least my boy is healthy

Liam sometimes like to put his book on his face and play the "where's Liam?" Game in the middle of reading. However, tonight we were reading and he slams the book up onto my face saying "Where's Mommy?" I said "Liam please stop you have to be gentle that hurts mommy" and so he says "do it to me mom" and so I open the book and gently put it up to his face and said "where' Liam" he says "stop mom, that hurts". Then he giggles grabs the book and says "Your turn mom". How the heck did that turn into a game?

 I told Liam he has one more minute before he had to lay down for bed and he grabbed a blanket and put it into his mouth. So I asked him "Is that how you want to spend your last minute, chewing on a blanket?" He said yes and then after a second he asked me to spit in his eye. I said "eww gross, no". And he said "do it mom, do it!" I told him I was not going to spit into his eye, needless to say his minute is now gone. Boys.....


Liam (who was supposed to be in bed asleep almost an hour ago) just came out into the living room and brought me one of his small fuzzy blankets to trade for my couch throw blanket. He said "Here mom, this is for you." And then he points to the one I was using "That one is Liam's." I said "Oh really" He says "yes mom, come on, help me" and started carrying it off to the bedroom. Needless to say I am now writing this with a green fuzzy monkey blanket that at least covers my legs haha.

Liam has recently started making faces in the mirror when he brushes his teeth now. (Personally I blame Pingu since anytime Pingu is in the bathroom he makes faces in the mirror at himself). But then he started saying things to his reflection like "Hi, I'm Liam" "This is Liam (points to self) and this is Mom" (points to me) At least I get to be included haha.

Liam and I were playing a game he made up using a shoelace and the table. He explained the rules to me and I followed. He says to be "Good job mom. You did it. Tickle Tickle". And tries to tickle my belly haha

Liam discovered a 32 minute long youtube video of nothing but live firetrucks responding. He is transfixed... and not even a single fire yet, just lots of sirens, horns and lights haha.  I swear he didn't even blink the entire time.  

Liam was eating lunch and he was wanting more fruit. I told him he could have some more if he ate a section of his sandwich. I just caught him take the sandwich stand up to pretend like he was doing something while holding the sandwich behind his back and move closer and closer to Kiri (the dog) to try to get her to take it from him. All the while he keeps looking back to see where she is. I just asked "Liam what are you doing?" He quickly threw the sandwich to Kiri and said "Mom, Kiri eat it! Kiri outside". Poor Kiri.....  

When Liam hands you an apple and says "Mom, open it please." What he means is that he wants me to take the first bite out of the apple so that it's easier for him to eat. Also when singing the itsy bitsy spider and it's Liam's turn to sing, the spider goes up the water spout about 20 times before the rain come down to wash it out.... 

Liam was eating bites off of my pizza and so when I had eaten it all he told me "Mom you ate all your food, time out". I asked "Why do I get a timeout for eating my own food?" He just said "Time out mom, time out!" I guess I lost that argument....

 Liam has the weirdest morning cravings. This morning he currently has on his plate (all at the same time) a cheese crisp, a yogurt, pickles and a spoon full of peanut butter..... Some days I swear I have a pregnant woman inside of my toddler hahaha. 

Liam is ever the imaginative procrastinator (I wonder where he gets it from) especially when it comes to bedtime. He can think of all kinds of reasons to attempt to prolong going to sleep and for a way to get up out of bed. This evening the new request I had was to tickle his face with my hair not one, not two, but five times. Haha yes this is what he wanted me to do and giggled with such glee that I was happy to have obliged. Never a dull moment haha.

Liam was reading a book to me and it had a black beetle and he was counting the legs and then all of a sudden he pulls his hand back really fast and says "Ow, get away bug. Go outside!" Hahaha I love my child, who gets bitten by bugs on the pages of books 
   

Liam and I were playing peekaboo with the shower curtain when he started throwing bath toys at me. I told him he couldn't throw anything else or we would have to stop playing. So the next time he took something and gently placed it outside of the tub and gave me an impish grin.... Somehow I feel like I just got bested..... 


Liam knelt on a block and his knee was hurt. I did the normal kissing it better routine, but apparently that wasn't enough. Instead I had a request to get the bubbles out and blow bubbles onto his knee. I of course obliged and it seemed to do the trick. Haha where does he get these ideas? 


Here are a couple spectacular videos from the last month haha

A few photos of the last month: 

Liam's first hospital gown at the doctor

Portraits at school

Helping out with the laundry

St Patrick's Day Green

Sweeping the back porch

Playing with packing materials

First Time Bowling!

If you would like to check out previous editions of The Mind of Toddler click the links:

Timeouts Reign Supreme: February 2014

Random Toddler Moments: January 2014

Random Toddler Moments: December 2013

Taking Credit Where Credit is Due

The Mind of a Toddler: February 2014 Timeouts Reign Supreme

I try to keep track of some of the random Liam moments that go on in my life throughout the month!  It is great to compile them once a month to look back and laugh about all of the things that stood out with my son.  In case you don't know my son is 3 years old and a constant source of entertainment.  Here are some of the random things that came from him mind for the past month.  Enjoy!  And please feel free to comment on the moments you have experienced with your toddler(s) as well!

Just this weekend Liam put me in timeout.  I was overjoyed by this because it meant I had to go to my room...  Unfortunately my timeout was not quite the same as Liam's time out.  When Liam puts me in timeout I need to go to my room and sit on the floor..   Then Liam comes and sits on my lap and then he is not quite comfortable and if I try to get up I get told to stay in timeout...  He then goes to gets a blanket comes back to my lap and covers us up with a blanket.  I can't say that it was quite how I imagined it would go but it was definitely wonderful all the same.

Just now as I was writing Liam came out for the 20th time in his nightly routine of trying to make bedtime stretch out for as long as possible with any concocted excuse that he could come up with.  So when he asked me what I was doing I told him I was writing.  He suggested that I write about ducks...  so now I will have to find a reason to write about ducks int he near future so that I can show him the ducks that I wrote about haha.  No idea why he wants me to write about ducks....

Liam has been noticeably sweet about sharing with food this month.  The other day we were having some cheesecake and I got us two spoons and we ate half of it and put it back in the fridge.  The next day Liam went into the fridge got the cheesecake out and then went and got two spoons and gave me one and told me it was my spoon for cheesecake haha.  How nice of him to want to share something so delicious with mommy :)

Liam knelt on a block and his knee was hurt. I did the normal kissing it better routine, but apparently that wasn't enough. Instead I had a request to get the bubbles out and blow bubbles onto his knee. I of course obliged and it seemed to do the trick. Haha where does he get these ideas?

 Liam likes to play a game with Kiri (our dog) where he has one of her treats and then he runs through the house while she chases him. He was just playing this game and ran into my room and went for a slide across the floor and hit his head on my dresser. I of course saw and heard the while thing, so when Liam came to me and told me "Kiri did it" I had to try really hard not to laugh. He is very adamant that it is Kiri's fault still haha.  He ended up blaming Kiri for over a week for this incident.

Liam and I were getting ready to go for a walk when I noticed he had two container from the fridge. He was trying to bring along some ground hamburger and some sausage links. At least they were already cooked ha ha! Haha you know you live with a man when....  You never know when you might get hungry and need a snack

Earlier this month I was just reading a bedroom stalling list from a 2 year old's point of view giving pointers to other toddlers and Liam DEFINITELY picked this one up and uses it EVERY naptime and bedtime:
LESSON FIVE: BOOK NEGOTIATION
When it comes to selecting books for bedtime stories, try standing frozen in front of your bookshelf, unable to make a decision. You can also attempt to renegotiate your allotted number of books. If your parent says you can have two, ask for three. If they say three, ask for four. The important thing is to never be satisfied. Lastly, pick the longest book possible or if you are feeling extra daring, pick the book with 100 “look and see” flaps. Those things take FOREVER.
We actually have different shelves with different sizes and types of books now, depending on how long the rest of bedtime has taken, Liam is told that he may select any book from a certain shelf or shelves based on time. Luckily he is ok with this because he still has choices and rarely tries to negotiate outside of that. But the number is still a constant battle. If someone else is over reading to him (ie. auntie Shayna) he always goes for a longer book or one with lots of flaps so that he can have more of her time reading to him. I let him do this since it doesn't happen often and I think it's cute.

When Liam wants to go to the park he always tells me he wants to swing up into the sky.  He tells everyone about swinging up into the sky.  However when we go to the park he spends a total amount of 5 minutes or less on the swing and refuses to swing anymore...  I never know why he uses the swing as his reason... maybe he is just always disappointed when he gets on the swing and never actually makes it up into the sky....  Or maybe it's just easier to talk about than a sandbox or the slide...  Hmm....

I guess there were a lot of timeouts issues this month!  Liam had a dryer sheet balled up into a fist in one hand and then he was hitting his other hand which was opened saying "time out! Time out hand. No hitting!" Does it make me a bad parent if I burst out laughing haha. Never a dull moment.

From earlier this month: I get out of the shower and Liam says to me "Yay mom, you're done taking a shower!" I say "Yes I am" He then says "I eated a cookie". I ask him "Was it yummy?" He says "YES!" I ask "Did you just eat one?" He says "I eated three", happily showing me how many on his fingers..... Note to self, place the cookies higher and teach Liam more past tense words haha. I love the unabashed honesty of a 3 year old.

Liam likes to postpone bedtime for as long as possible and is always finding new reasons to stay up and get me to come into his bedroom, one night it was to keep adding pillows. By the end he had 5 pillows stacked up and was laying on top of them while wearing a knit winter hat, so I had to take a picture since it was so hilarious. As he was winding down to actually go to sleep he wanted me to put all but one pillow away and I did and said goodnight and left the room. I was in the kitchen and heard Liam crying, so I walked back to see what was wrong. All he says is "picture" through his tears. That's right my child is crying because I didn't take a picture of him with the one pillow haha, so I will have to upload them since he posed so cutely with a huge grin on his face. Gotta love parenthood.

 Liam loves getting a cakepop on our occasional Starbucks stops (ok so maybe they are more like once a week).  One day we went and got one and I handed him back his delicious treat and he said "oh boy oh boy oh boy" in glee!  Needless to say I still have yet to regret getting him one based on his happy reaction to it :)

 Liam hurt his hand, so he came up to me showed me his hand saying "Here mom, ow-wee" So I say "Oh No!" And kissed it. Then he happily bounces off to resume playing haha. The joys of motherhood

And it all started on the first day of this month: Liam and I were playing and he told me to go to timeout. At lunch I ate a carrot off of his plate and he told me to go to timeout again. We were watching Despicable Me 2 and we always talk about wanting chip hats... I told Liam I wanted a Chip Hat and he said "No I want one, timeout!" Somehow I think this has backfired on me......

If you would like to check out previous editions of The Mind of Toddler click the links:

Random Toddler Moments: January 2014

Random Toddler Moments: December 2013

Taking Credit Where Credit is Due

Breakfast Helper

Cake Pop

Airplane ride

Being silly with Mommy!

Swing time

All of the pillow

The picture he cried for me to take haha

Impish One

Random Liam Moments: January 2014

I had such a great time sharing Liam's random moments from December that I thought it would be fun to share them monthly!  Here are some of the highlights from the last month.

Liam will only wear his Cars Light Up Shoes and his Airplanes zip-up hoodie for a jacket.  It doesn't matter if it matches or not.  We get into a huge fight if I really want him to wear something else or extensive acts of bribery...  Usually I find it's not worth it and just wash them both constantly instead haha.

Liam and I were playing and he told me to go to timeout. At lunch I ate a carrot off of his plate and he told me to go to timeout again. We are watching Despicable Me 2 right now and we always talk about wanting chip hats... I told Liam I wanted a Chip Hat and he said "No I want one, timeout!" Somehow I think this has backfired on me

Liam just let out a really long fart, and then there was silence before he said bless you. I don't know why it was so funny but I just laughed hysterically for almost 5 full minutes.... In case this is funny to anyone else I wanted to share, otherwise I am probably just sleep deprived hahaha. Usually he says excuse me but I think he wasn't sure what to think hahaha


Liam says to me "I have to go potty" as he is playing in his tent so I told him Let's go potty" and we started walking to the bathroom. He informed me "I peed in my pants" He is not one for accidents so I am frantically touching his pants all over looking for a wet spot saying "did you really, how come?" He says "No, ha I'm funny" and laughs hysterically....... Children...

Liam is playing with his food, he had a cheese curd and ripped it in half and one of them was Liam and one was mommy, they were having conversations and playing hide and seek, and at the end they hugged and said "I love you Liam" and "I love you too" and then they were eaten haha. At least they were loving cheese curds...

 Three must be when it starts.... he calls my kisses yucky and now he doesn't want to wake up if I try to wake him up telling me no waking up and that it's time to sleep... 3 going on 13..... And he wakes up wanting chocolate in the morning throwing a tantrum when I won't let him have chocolate for breakfast. I feel like I have a teen girl going through PMS some days haha


 Liam is playing with his food, he had a cheese curd and ripped it in half and one of them was Liam and one was mommy, they were having conversations and playing hide and seek, and at the end they hugged and said "I love you Liam" and "I love you too" and then they were eaten haha. At least they were loving cheese curds...


So a grand maul tantrum ensued after trying to make Liam some oatmeal and he wanted chocolate cream of wheat, so after he calmed down I made him cream of wheat and myself oatmeal.... guess who just gave me his cream of wheat and is now devouring my oatmeal.... little stinker

Liam was watching videos on Youtube and got onto one of making a polymer clay minion from despicable me, he has now been enthralled in polymer clay pixar character creations for the last 45 minutes. I guess this means that it's time for mom to buy Liam some clay or to start making and baking actual objects with the play doh.

 Oh no it has started already at 3, Liam wanted a hug and I kissed his cheek, he just wiped it off and said yuck Where does he learn this? I said No yuck haha

Liam was trying to "cold hands" me while I was making lunch and I made him stop, so then I hear him squealing running around the house so I went to go see what he was doing. He had both hands up the back of his shirt and was saying "cold hands" to himself and squealing haha. I love my child.

This evening Liam and I were watching the second Lilo & Stitch: Stick has a Glitch. Liam has watch all of the Lilo & Stitch movies many times and is very attached to them. He has only seen this one a couple time though and it's been awhile since we last watched it. Towards the end Stitch is running out of power and almost dies, I was watching him and his eyes started to tear up, he was actually feeling emotion towards Stitch and genuinely sad for him and then when their love brings him back to life I was cheering and Liam was happy but his eyes were still wet, if it would have went on for longer I think he genuinely would have cried for Stitch. I found this very interesting because although he knows what goes on in movies now, I haven't seen him get emotionally into something in quite this way. It made me very happy that even though it sucks sometimes I am glad for the decision that I made early on to limit my adult show time to only after Liam was in bed and wasn't watching it. I didn't want him picking up things off of adult themed shows/movies until he was able to better understand what was going on and how to process those things. It is also nice to know that my boy shows compassion towards others even if they are intangible to him.  

 If you want to check out the moments from last month go to:
 Random Liam Moments: December 2013 
 

DIY: Kid Activities

There are a lot of awesome DIY (Do-It-Yourself) projects that I have been wanting to try with Liam, so maybe if I can post them all in one place and write about the than it will help me find the time to actually get the stuff together and do them.  So I have decided that I should do this as a monthly thing and force myself to try a couple of things and then post how it all turned out.  I would love any suggestions for other DIY projects that I may not have come across on my own. 

Mind Jar

The alternative for a Time Out, I came across this one today and it is sparkly and fun, and possibly effective.  Although the original calls for a glass jar, I am more inclined to try this using plastic as it cannot be broken as easily.  I know when it is time for time-out for Liam, he is usually in a place where he is not at his calmest and may be inclined to throw something that I had to him regardless of how sparkly it is.  It was describes as:
"A Mind Jar is a meditation tool to use whenever a child feels stressed, overwhelmed or upset. Imagine the glitter as your thoughts. When you shake the jar, imagine your head full of whirling thoughts, then watch them slowly settle while you calm down". 

This can provide a nice alternative to a traditional timeout, and it encourages the child to refocus without punishing them. Although the kids and I just like to shake it up and sit and watch the glitter swirl around and around. Perhaps next time we'll make our own snow globe by gluing an object on the inside of the lid.

Supplies:
- Plastic Bottle (or you can use the mason jar or baby food jar that was in the original post)
- Glitter Glue
- Food Coloring
- Warm Water

Directions:
Mix about 1 tablespoon of glitter glue with 1 cup of warm water...depending on the size of your jar. My jar was a bit bigger so I used 2 tablespoons of glitter glue and 2 cups of warm water. I also added some blue food coloring since my kids like the color blue.

Note: The warm water is to help dissolve the glue. I had a hard time dissolving it...so I heated the water up in a microwave safe cup for 30-60 seconds. While the water is warm...the glitter will fall quickly. I noticed that it only took about 3 minutes for the glitter to fall while the water was warm...but it took a little over 5 minutes to finish falling once the water cooled down. If you do use this as an alternative to time-outs and think 5 minutes is too long for your child, you should play around with the water and glue ratio.
*My main question is, does this mean that you need to warm it up each time?  No one will have time for that if it is used as a possible timeout alternative.  I would find that you need to gauge it by what it is like cool and skip the warm water step.

 Salt Painting

This is a great and easy way to have a fun painting time at home with not too much of a mess.  I have seen a lot of people try this and similar things out in the past and have been wanting to try it with Liam since he is totally into creating different works of art. 








Supplies:
-Construction paper/cardstock
-Paintbrush and/or medicine dropper
-Colored water (we used about a tablespoon of water with 6-7 drops of food coloring)
-Salt
-Glue
-Little bowls for colored water



Directions:
Have your child draw a picture with glue.Then sprinkle the glue with salt.  We did this on top of a piece of cardboard, but a baking sheet will work well too. Next have your child take a paintbrush or a medicine dropper and drop colored water, one drop at a time onto the salt.
Some tips: Make sure they lightly touch the salt with the brush.  It also helps to have a bowl to clean the brush in between colors...otherwise you lose the colors start blending together and you lose the vibrant colors because they become murky.

Kool-Aid Dyed Rice & Pasta

This is a great way for what many people call "Sensory Learning."  It is suggested that you get a sensory bin (any kind of plastic shallow tray or bin) and then you want to have various colored objects of all shapes and sizes and then you child can learn from these things and play with them.  Personally I think that a lot of these things can double as art supplies if you have some glue on hand, to include this project.  

Supplies:
1 Cup Rice or 1 Cup Pasta
1/2 tsp Kool-Aid
1 tsp Rubbing Alcohol
Gallon or large plastic Ziplock bags
Tin Foil
Cookie Sheet

Directions:
Gather your tools and start by standing up and opening your large freezer bag. A freezer bag (and not just a regular gallon bag) is imperative for the dying process because of it's thickness--the bag will stand up on its own and will also hold up better to leakage than a standard bag. Use one bag for each color you wish to make.
First, have your child add 1 cup of rice to each bag. Then, have him or her scoop out a 1/2 teaspoon of power out of each Kool-Aid packet. (Each Kool-Aid packet typically has 1 teaspoon of powder in it.) Pour the powder on top of the rice. For the last step, which is a mama step, add 1 teaspoon of rubbing alcohol to each bag on top of the previous two ingredients.
Seal the bag shut (because I can attest that wet Kool-Aid rice is NOT a fun experience to clean up!) and shake it up (this can be a fun part in the process for the kids to do too)! Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to saturate.
Next, pour the wet rice out onto a tray and get it as flat as it will go so that you can dry it overnight (or for at least 6-8 hours). When I dye rice or pasta, I usually make little tin foil sections in the tray to separate the colors. When it is dry, the rice will be all clumped together; separate the rice grains with your hands. (This is also a fun step for kiddo involvement too!)