Bad Behavior

There is alot to write about in this post. I have been trying to update Rooneytoons for many days but time is limited to when Rooney is sleeping, I'm not wearing my patch and we are home. Last week we had snow! In this picture Rooney is staring at the snow falling. As you can see, it did not stick at all, but it was still interesting to watch. Later that day we also had a very loud hail storm. Springtime in the PNW can be a real weather event. After 11 years I'm still not used to the weather here. If we got any of this weather in So. Cal I would have thought the sky was falling or something.

I am sad to report I believe Rooney has entered into his "terrible 2's" already. He had started biting awhile ago. I hated that Rooney was going to be known as a "biter" but I accepted it & knew it was a phase. Well now he has started hitting. Ahhh! This has become very difficult for me, because 1. you don't want your kid to hit but 2. one of the mom's in our playgroup is very sensitive to her son being bullied. So now I am worried that Rooney is going to be labeled a bully, when he really isn't. Sometimes he just wants to play alone and it really doesn't help matters when the other kids take toys away from him. Anyway this has been stressful and we have started implementing "time-outs". I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, and once Rooney can communicate a little more, we may revisit how we'll handle discipline.

Along with this new phase Rooney has also done some exciting things. I have tried since Rooney was probably 6 months to do some signs with him. Admittedly I have been really lax on using the signs lately because he really didn't seem real interested in using them. Last week Rooney, out of the blue, pulled out a few of these signs to let me know what he wanted. One if which, the sign for milk, he never used before! I was so amazed. It also appears that Rooney is understanding what I am saying to him, even if he does not verbally respond. Lately, when I give him verbal commands, such as asking him to stand in the bathtub when I need to rinse him off, he will stand up. Very helpful!

Rooney has also started mimicking some behavior. Man this is cute. A couple times Rooney has tried to give his Cheesie drinks of water from his cup. I have also witnessed him doing this with a stuffed dog he has. Then this weekend at Kim's baby shower, I was feeding Rooney a yogurt, and he kept put Cheesies face into the container like he was eating! Oh my god it was the funniest, sweetest and cutest thing I have seen in a long time. He's becoming such a big boy. So big in fact that he has decided to go down to one nap a day. This has been real hard for me. I really relied on the 2 naps. We have come up with a pretty good schedule for us though. Rooney gets up every morning at 7:30am, he plays w/dad for an hour or so, I take over, feed him breakfast, we go to the family room & play/read books. At 10am Sesame Street comes on (which Rooney loves). Rooney watches Sesame Street, I wear my eye patch (I am strengthening my right eye by patching my left eye- no pirate jokes please!) and then at 11am Rooney goes down for his nap. In the 2 hours he's down I should shower, answer emails & do anything around the house that I need to get done without him. I normally get my shower in & answer emails. Weekends have been busy with the other stuff.

That being said I should jump in the shower or get some laundry folded...