Monday, March 19, 2007

The bad and the good and the good

This morning Lukas continued his on-and-off again "teenage" habit of not getting out of bed, just lying there and sucking his thumb, fully awake. Today we told him if he didn't get out of bed, he wouldn't get breakfast. Of course, he didn't get out of bed, so breakfast was already put away by the time he did get up, and he didn't get any cereal. I did give him his cup of milk, so he didn't go completely without, but I'm hoping this will nip this problem now (he normally eats an adult serving of Cheerios and an adult serving of Raisin Bran). He cried and asked for breakfast, but he realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to give in. I expected him to want lunch early, but he played with Play-Doh for 15 minutes at CHOC before agreeing to eat lunch.

Lately he has not wanted to help with the laundry as much (moving the clothes to the dryer), but he still likes to take the lint out of the lint screen, so I asked him if he wanted to do that. He got the lint, then put the dry clothes in the laundry basket, then moved the wet clothes into the dryer, all without being asked! I praised him a lot, and told Caryn and Sarah how proud I was of what a good helper he is.

I hope these are indications that we have pulled back from the brink, where we were last week, and that more predictable behavior is in our immediate future. But it's all the more assurance that Tom and I cannot let up and think that Lukas will continue his good behavior without our active encouragement.

Right now my sweet boy is taking a nap (the neighbor's dog must have defended his territory from an opossum this morning at 4 am and it woke up Lukas, who woke up the rest of the family with "Mommy, Mommy, the doggies are barking!") I can't wait to see what his personality will be for the second half of the day!

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