Take It Away

We live in an apartment. It's a two bedroom but it's still an apartment. Luckily, we have a garage too. Lately, there are some toys that have pushed me too far and are now in the garage. That buggy from his birthday? He was using it to block everything and I got tired of asking him to put it away. It's for outside anyway so it's in the garage. That mega blocks table from Christmas? He was only scattering the blocks around the living room not building with them so that too is in the garage (although that might come back again when he's playing with the wooden blocks in his room correctly). The bike from Grandma and Pop last Christmas that he would also move to block me in and not ride, garage. When Josh put the Mega Blocks table in the garage a couple of days ago he commented about me taking away all of Zach's toys. That included a cash register he never used either. All of it is for sanity and safety.

With my freshly healed foot I look at the messes he creates. If he's playing with something properly, like his desk, then I don't have a problem. The things that had to go were the things he moved into a pile then battled with me when it came time to clean it up. I am not going to step on something and break my foot again because he keeps making messes. Those blocks are dangerous the way he played with them and a giant pain to help clean up. They had to go when he used a batteryless remote and played "baseball" with a block hitting it against the wall repeatedly. Yes, I make him do the cleanup but for the really big messes I help and we do one step at a time. The living room looks clean, mostly, and Zach doesn't miss what's gone because all his favorite toys are still here, including his ride on Thomas and shopping cart, his two favorites.

But toys aren't the only thing I've been taking away. He's had a rough week. When his morning pop tart broke I spent two days replacing it for him as he cried. Wednesday, I threw it out and said no more pop tart if you are just going to cry. When he calmed down I caved. Thursday, it broke again, I didn't cave but when he calmed down and realized I mean business, he asked nicely for nuts, which he got. Today is Friday, he didn't cry but handled the pop tart more carefully. It was heaven!

The second food battle of the week he won but it was reasonable. He's decided he's sick of cold cuts for lunch and only wanted blueberries or strawberries. I thought those are snack not lunch he needs to develop a sense of which food is for which meal. After nap of Wednesday, the roughest day, I gave him leftover grilled chicken and pasta salad. When he ate that, he got his blueberries. Tuesday he didn't eat lunch at all but at the pool with Grandma I brought a huge amount of blueberries for all of us and he had half. I decided yesterday that berries count as lunch because fruit salad can be a lunch and that's mostly what the berries are. One battle won by Zach but it's berries not chocolate so it was reasonable.

Currently,  he took the hamburger buns out of the toy drawer, handed them to me, and started screaming "eat it, eat it" I said "okay you can eat it" then he continued to scream "no mine eat it" "yes, your's you can eat one" (once he got into that drawer it was hard to stop he had the crackers yesterday I stopped him at 3). Now he's quietly eating one.

He's getting better about not doing things to prompt the taking away. Example, I mentioned in an earlier post that I don't want him going on the high part of the little kid play set at the park because older kids are always running around and not paying attention to little kids and he could be knocked off and seriously injured. Previously, he would go there three times after being warned that after three we leave the playground so he was removed from the playground. Grandma usually takes his side so we tend to have issues because Mommy makes the rules and Grandma undermines her authority by challenging them then Grandmacomplains when Mommy challenges her. Yesterday at the playground, he didn't even go up there once, so he was rewarded with playing there for a very long time, until he tried to climb into another kid's wagon, three times, with me taking him out three time, until I took him away.

I'm tired of the whining and screaming but this stage is just beginning. Luckily, Mommy is stubborn (thanks Grandma for that trait) and can just ignore the screams until he calms down, only then does he get what he wants.

He made another mess, this one with his pool toys. He turned his toy basket upside down. At least he's playing with them. Soon, they will be cleaned up. Especially since he almost tripped on the beads while crying over the bun.