Burgeoning dichotomy

The past week and a half has thrown several monkey wrenches into our sons' schedules.  Along with a couple of bad cogs and some wee doses of pure mischief and evil.  Imagine five straight days spent in the clutches of doting and spoil-prone grandparents, and then forced to come home with parents who firmly believe in the healthy rigours of a set schedule, with absolutely no transition period to soften the blow.

We're mean, unforgiving parents, Amy and I.

Here are a couple of pictures to show how very differently the two boys have coped with the change...

Declan has a habit of getting emotional and surly when he's off schedule.  Cries at the drop of a hat.  But if you put him in a really good snuggle position with a movie in front of him, it goes a long way to consoling the beast.  He didn't nap, but he was much better for the evening.  Portable DVD players are great!

Tavish, on the other hand, went down at the usual time for his nap, but decided to inform his parents of his general state of dis-contentedness with an unequivocal and undeniably pointed dissertation on the importance of respecting relative boundaries or borders.  It took him over half an hour to do this, but he was very quiet while making his statement, and he was mostly done by the time Amy discovered him in progress, so we let him vent his steam and then he nuzzled into the corner of his crib and had a good long nap.

Comments

[Dixie]

Oh my! Is this his way of telling you he's ready for his "big boy" room? Happy new year, by the way. Hope you guys had fun last night. ;)

[Mark]

"Dex gets all the good DVD's! I'm angry!"

We also felt the sting of getting the little one out of the usual routine. He became a whole new boy both times we came home (there was a brief breather between family weekends).

Not unlike their parents, the children like a least a few things in their lives to be predictable.

Sounds like Moksha had a time of it, too.

[Dave]

But... what was he watching? Star Wars??? *chuckling*

Don't you just love Grandparents that spoil the heck out of your kids! *S*

[marian]

It's revenge, you know. We are totally looking forward to doing that to our (someday, hopefully) grandchildren, in the spirit of malicious glee.

[Émilie B]

Well it's clear the boy is embarking on a fresh new year... starting with a new decor.

[Jayson Merryfield]

Happy New Year, Fraser clan!

Aren't portable DVD players just the cats pajamas so far as keeping kids quiet and content? My nephews are general hellions, especially in the car, but put on a dvd and they're relatively quiet.

[Amy]

I might just leave it like that. The light color that you see is the paper backing to the border. Maybe I should just give him some crayons at nap time and he can keep himself busy coloring. He can finish picking the rest of it off another time. How do you train a 22 month old to color only where you want him to???

[deanna]

Amy...Just keep moving his crib around the room till he gets it all off!

[Moksha Gren]

I'm just impressed with what a thorough job he did. Maybe send him down my way so I can put him to work in our kitchen. Nasty flower paper left by the previous owners.

Yes, routine swapping is a horrible ordeal at this young age. My mom's birthday is this weekend. We had planned to go back down and spend the day with her, but have since thought better of that plan. I told MoMa that we'd be happy to come down, but that she has to be willing to watch as Moonshot and I have nervous breakdowns in her house. She passed.

[Paula]

Ooh, my 'progressive' lenses really DON'T like your new banner. As soon as I start looking at the blur that is Declan my head starts aching.

[Amy]

Deanna- PERFECT solution!!! I might just do that!!!

[Terri]

Love it!!!

[marian]

For lack of anything new to read, I went hunting around your site and found the Motivational Parenting section, which I'd never looked at before! Brilliant!