Our Night
I knew I was in trouble the minute I walked in the room. E had a fire truck with a working ladder and was completely enthralled with moving it up and down. I knew I had no chance of getting it out of his hands and getting him out of the room without a meltdown. Normally I'm super thankful that E loves school so much, but I do miss the days when he used to run into my arms with a smile at pickup. Instead, I dealt with a meltdown as predicted and tried not to take it personally.
He's been a little cranky lately. A little off. Quick to whine or get upset, waking up more at night, crying in his sleep. We're not sure why.. growing pains, being a toddler, getting sick...eventually he'll actually be teething one of these times.
Either way, it doesn't really matter. All that matters is it changes a bit how we parent lately. More distraction, more time spent within arms reach. Letting him guide the activity. And if that means he wants to spend the hour leading up to bed time walking the length of the upstairs back and forth, back and forth, that's what we'll do.
And that's where I found myself the other night. It was still 40 minutes to bedtime and all E wanted to do was play with CharlieCards upstairs. He didn't want to read books or play with his toys or hang out outside. He wanted to pick up CharlieCards and put them back down. Over and over. Okay.
I decided to play some music on my phone to make things a bit more interesting as we counted down to bedtime. E likes my phone, mostly because he knows I like it. He will occasionally carry it around, but mostly he likes to chew on it. He picked it up like he usually does...and then discovered the music coming out of it!
His face lit up, and he held the speaker up to his ear and like a mini boombox on his shoulder. He started bouncing up and down and did laps of the room as he listened to NSYNC. Eventually the song changed and Bruno Mars came on next, which he decided he didn't like, and threw the phone down. He continued to ignore it until Gangnam Style came on, at which point he started laughing and lunged for the phone again. He may be little, but he knows what he likes!
I only wish I had a video of him strutting around with the phone up to his ear... guess I need to start carrying around a spare camera..