Those of you who know the kids well will know from the title that today's post is about Matthew. So today I was telling Matthew that he was an independent little boy. He replied, "I'm not d..d..dent! I'm pokey little Matthew!" This was when he was trying to put on his own shoes (which he now does quite well). While that is a good display of Matthew's independence, he has had other displays which haven't been so good. Take church yesterday, for example. Why does it seem that many of the challenges we have with the kids are at church? Well, I guess the most public of our challenges occur at church. Just when we think we're being such good parents, we go to church, and despite not being able to pay attention to the sermon, we leave church more aware of our own weaknesses (and our own sinfulness) as our children likely just put on a display of bad behavior which of course reflects directly on the parents.
Anyway, back to the story. Matthew hasn't been sleeping well as I thought it would be a good idea to convert his crib to a toddler bed. He hasn't been climbing out of his crib, but the doctor said he should probably be out of a crib by now, so we converted it to a toddler bed that he can get in and out of by himself. So he was pretty tired on Sunday despite the "extra" hour of sleep which used to be so fun, but now it just means that your kids will be getting up at 5 or 6 rather than 6 or 7AM. So we went to church with a crabby Matthew. The morning started by getting the boys some busy bags with toys and books. We got to our pew and sat down and Matthew was quite pleased to find a car/truck book in his bag. Church started and (ok, actually church had already started when we walked in, let's be honest) Matthew read his book then put it down. At that point, Sam grabbed it and started looking at it. Then Matthew started screaming "I want my book! I want the book! Ah ah ah ahhhhhhh!" It was very loud. And very embarrassing. I was fortunate enough to be taking care of Sam, while Jason was "managing" Matthew so he had to take the brunt of the screaming and squirming Matthew. We quickly got the book back and gave it to Matthew, then it was calm for a few minutes.
So then it was time for the children's message. Sam got up and said he wanted Matthew to come with. After Matthew's poor behavior at the children's message in the past, he hasn't been going up lately, but I thought Sam would erupt if Matthew didn't come, so I grabbed Matthew's hand and told him to come up to the children's message. Then he erupted, "I don't want to go! I don't want to go! Ahh ahhh ahhhhh ahhhhhhh!!!" Seriously, I grabbed Sam's had and quickly moved away from the volcanic child and heard him screaming all the way as we walked up to the front from the second to last pew we were sitting in. People were turning around and laughing or glaring. I can laugh about it now, but wow, it was loud and embarrassing. We made it through the rest of church without much difficulty, but the damage had been done and we walked out humiliated.
Let's talk about some more Matthew-induced humiliation. On Saturday I decided to do swim lessons with both Sam and Matthew. Sam is in one class and Matthew in a different class which is a parent-child class. So I got in the water with Matthew and he was a tyrant. He sobbed, screamed and refused to get in the water without extreme fuss. We were right in front of the bleachers filled with happy parents watching their happy children in swimming lessons and I was fighting with my very unhappy child. Ugh. Now, we have gone swimming before. And Matthew likes it. He jumps in (trying not to get his head wet), but has a good time. Not in swim lessons, though. It was terrible. I don't know if we'll go back.
I could go on and on about how Matthew is exerting his independence with his new toddler bed, but I will save that for another time. Now I know that independence and strong convictions will help Matthew out down the road, but it sure can be tough at times! That's our pokey little Matthew.
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