Secondborn

Remember what I said about the second child proving to you that what worked with the first won't work the second time around? Well this little two and a half year old is the reason for that statement. Our mornings go a little something like this:
6:15 a.m. The alarm hasn't even gone off yet. I hear a soft thump and little pitter patter of feet, then the door opening, then more pitter patter, closer now, and then:
"MOMMYYYYYYYYY!" in the loudest, hissing whisper he can fathom. "ARE YOU AWAKE?!!!"
"Mm-hmmm...."
"CAN I GET DRESSSSSSSSED?!?"
"...mmm...yeah, hun....*trying to think of something that will occupy him, safely, so I can buy a couple of more minutes*....hey bud, why don't you go find your Buzz toy?"
"BECAUSE I WANT TO GET DRESSSSSSSSED!" (every sentence starts with "because" or "probably" with him, can't tell you why...)
"Okay.....do you want to go play in the basement?" (last ditch effort, basement works every time).
"BECAUSE I WANT TO GET DRESSSSSSSSSED!"
"Okay okay....can you give Mommy just a couple of minutes?" (couldn't hurt to ask....)
"OKAY!!!!" he complies, then more pitter patter. Did that really just work? "I GO WAKE UP CHLOE!!!!!!"
"WHOA, hold up! I'm up, I'm up, let's go get dressed, bud!"
"Because I want to get my diaper changed!" he protests, at the door with his hand on the knob. I feel something like a policeman trying to talk a man out of pulling the trigger on his gun.
"Okay, okay, well just let Mommy do it, okay? Just take your hand off the door, don't go in there or you'll wake up-" too late. He barrells back into the room and starts yanking at the stiff dresser drawers, making an aweful creaking noise and banging them shut as I start to approach.
"I wanna wear green shirt!" he demands. Green shirt. His best friend in the whole world. Actually, this is green shirt #2, the first one got put away, so he latches on to another one. He even points it out in pictures like it's one of the family ("Mommy, Daddy, Chloe, Linus, Odell, aaaaannnnnd GREEN SHIRT!!!!"). Unfortuantely green shirt can only be worn once a week, so the other six days I have to come up with another way to convince him to wear something else. As queitly as I can, I pull out shirt after shirt desperately trying to convince him that the red shirt with the hood is super soft, here, feel it, or the grey striped one has buttons, look, or this one has a basketball on it, isn't that cool? Finally, something clicks and he eventually chooses another one. He barrells back out of the room, Chloe thankfully slept through it all, and I collect the rest of his clothing and head downstairs. We get his diaper changed after about ten minutes of negotiating. "I want to take off my pants! Where's my shoes? Where's my socks? No, I want to lie down MYSELF! I want to take off my diaper! I want to wipe! I want to put it back on!" and then, the kicker. "PROBABLY I DON'T WANT TO WEAR THESE PANTS!!!! NOT THESE ONES!!!" And I've had about enough. It's these pants or nothing, bud. But, ah, I don't actually say that outloud because I know exactly what he'll chose and it won't be the pants. So I collect him and the rest of the clothes up, carry him screaming into the basement where he can't be heard and we put the pants on, after which he immediately calms down and says "Oh. I like these pants!"
Breakfast is another ordeal, you can imagine, and the entire morning mostly revolves around him. It's not all bad, though, and in fact he is improving little by little. I've definitely found that the more calm I am about things, even if it takes longer to convince him to do what I ask, he eventually does it, but if I lose it, he loses it and kicks his heels in deep.
He and Chloe certainly have vivid imaginations and will come up with the most hairbrained games and situations that they act out. I love it. Mostly it involves them running around the house, averting and sometimes getting caught by "the bad guys" or "the monsters". Linus's favorite monster is one by the name of "Neenano". I have no idea where he heard that or where it comes from, but I often hear him in the other room, running around with Chloe until he exclaims at the top of his lungs "OH NOOOOO, CHLOE! IT'S .......... A ........... NNNNEEEENANO!!!!" He LOVES to eat. Every morning is constantly interrupted by a question about when snack time is or when lunch time is or can he have an orange or can he have some raisins. That is, until it's dinner time and then whatever we're having is "GROSS" until we manually shove it in his mouth and then it's the best thing he's ever had (remember the pants? See a pattern immerging here?).
What I love about Linus:

• When he cries, he's always up for a cuddle. That's usually how I calm him down is just kneeling down and opening up his arms and it doesn't matter what he was fussing about, he comes right over and colapses in my arms with racking sobs.
  
• He's very helpful sometimes. Sometimes when I don't need him to be, like when he discovers my dresser and unloads everything off of the top of it to bring to me. A lot of times I'll be making bread and I turn around and find little presents he's left on the counter for me, like my cell phone, my glasses, a necklace or two, some spare change, etc.
  
• Getting a BIG wet slobbery kiss before bed every night from him.
• When he says his prayers at night (that is, when he's not being silly about it and we have to start him over twenty times because he just wants to be a goof-off) and he quietly prays for everyone in the family and prays to be a good boy and listen to Mommy and Daddy. Sometimes that makes it all worth it.
  
• He loves to make me laugh, always a clown. One night I was getting them ready for bed and after he pulled his pants up, he pulled them halfway up his chest, then slumped down like an old man and began hobbling around the room with a silly grin on his face. I lost it and just started busting up laughing. What two year old walks around like an old man? I can see I'm going to have a tough time with him when he's a teenager...
• He's super smart. He talks a mile a minute, repeats anything you say (not always a good thing), and is learning things just about at pace with Chloe, who is two years older than him. Well...not quite at pace, she's starting to make some leaps and bounds herself, but as far as kinesthetic things, like fine/major motor skills stuff, he really excels (big surprise, right?). I'm told that juggerknaut speed he takes crashing into things every minute of every day will pay off on the football field one day. :-)
• He. Is. A. Boy. Love little boys, and they will grow up to be good men.