The point of this post though is to write some of the things that Nate says over and over throughout the day. Some of them are cute, some of them are things I wish he wouldn't say once, let alone over and over. For example, when Nate is excited about his lunch, or food of some sort, he says "yeah Mom! I eat this peanut butter sandwich and it makes my wiener big. Makes me big!" He is confusing the whole "good food helps you grow healthy and strong" thing and making me uncomfortable in the process.
One of the funny ones though, is when I tell him it's time to brush his teeth. He absolutely hates it. I read in a parenting book that toddlers need more choices, so I should give him choices where both decisions have an outcome that I can live with. With that in mind, I started asking him if he wanted to be happy or sad when I brushed his teeth. He thought about it for a minute and said "happy", so we brushed his teeth and he didn't cry once. I thought it was some miracle until the next day, when given the same choice, he said "not happy, not sad" and now we cry through teeth brushing every time. When he sees a toothbrush in my hands, he runs away saying "not happy, not sad!"
When Nate gets in trouble, he cries and says "you make me sad Mom!" I tell him that he made me sad too and he always has to turn it around to be my bad, not his. If I want to kill some time in the day, all I have to do is get into a "no, you make me sad...no, you do...yes, you do...no, you do" argument. I love switching it up on him and making him contradict himself.
He doesn't like when we mess with the lyrics of songs, or change the name of things. For example, I was singing to the tune "One little, two little, three little Indians" but I changed the word to "Nathans". He got so mad that he chewed me out and tried to cover my mouth. He'll argue for insane amounts of time if you call him "tater baby" or "sloppy Joe". He says "No! I not Tater Baby! I Nayfun". "I not Sloppy Joe! I just Nayfun Joe."
I used to always personalize songs that the kids already knew when Jake and Allie were the boys ages. We'd drive to Logan singing the "Little Schwabby's" to the Little Einstein's theme song. Nate can't stand it. You have to sing things the right way, or not at all.
We argue over Tow Mater's name from Cars almost every day. Nate thinks it's "Nater" and I like to rile him up by telling him that it's Mater.
He still likes to assign ownership to all the things that appeal to him. For example, if we see a bunch of Matchbox cars on a shelf, he says "that's Nayfun's (always a green one), that's Jacob's (orange or blue), that's Allie's (pink or purple), that's Daddy's (red), that's Jason's (yellow), that's or's ("yours"-whatever's left). He repeats them over and over until I pull him away from the objects. The first time that we noticed that he likes to assign everyone an object was when we went to Yellowstone and he was giving us each our own "hot tub" at the mud pots.
He is really possessive of the things that he has claimed to be his own. He also thinks it's his business to protect the items he has assigned to other people. Jason doesn't really get it, so they get into a lot of tussles over the toys at home. I don't think Jason will ever understand why he isn't supposed to play with the car that has been assigned to Jake, when Jake isn't even home.
Nate loves to jump into any conversation. The kids will be telling me about their day at school and Nate will be right beside them, vying for my attention and mimicking their words like an echo. "This boy at school! He hurt me...he just went BAM!" (punching himself in the gut, he'll fall to the ground, then hop back up and start in again).
If you ask him where a bruise or a scrape came from, he'll start in on a grand story of how "Allie punched me in the face like this BAM!" (punching himself). Allie will stare at me in shock and complain that she didn't touch him. I know it's true because I saw him fall down and scrape his chin on the ice, so I know Allie couldn't possibly be the one to have done it. It makes me worried for what he tells other people and what they might believe.
This is turning into a longer post than I intended, but I'm glad I have written some of these things down. Nate makes me smile a hundred times a day and he's just getting better and better. I could do without some of the arguments about candy before and after every meal, or almost constant ipad time, but I never get enough of the kisses he gives me each day or the hundreds of genuine "thanks Mom!" that comes to him so easily.
I love you Nayfun Joe!
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