All about Jonas

I know, I take a lot of pictures of Alexis. I do take pictures of Jonas, too. Maybe not as many, but I do take them. I just feel like they aren't as good because he's moving like crazy, or he runs away or he never looks at the camera.

So this post is all about Jonas. What he's up to and everything that you might want (or not want) to know about him.

 We've decided to potty train him again. Oh, did I mention we quit a few months ago? He was fighting me and kicking and screaming every time I took him potty, so I canned it. However this time, he's earning something pretty big. I wasn't planning on doing it, it just kind of happened. Our neighbors, when they come over for me to babysit, bring their bikes so they can have fun outside. The 2 year old has a strider bike, aka a balance bike with no pedals. Jonas LOVES it! So Truman is nice and he shares. Well, Jonas said he wanted a bike. And I'm not the type of parent that is going to give him whatever he wants, so last night I said we would buy him a bike if he goes potty in the toilet, wears big boy underwear and keeps it dry. He said he would do it. We printed off a picture of the bike, I filled the page around the picture with squares so he can put stickers in the squares. And when all the squares are filled with stickers we will buy him a bike. If this doesn't work, then I'm giving up. He can wear diapers till he's 7. Ha ha :)  I won't deal with it anymore.

EDITED VERSION - no joke, right after I published this (before this edited version) I went to check on him and he had peed all over the carpet and in his underwear and he didn't care. I told him no bike and he's ok with that. He wanted his diaper back on. If a bike can't motivate him to pee in the toilet, nothing can. He'll just be in diapers until he realizes he doesn't want to be a baby anymore. He's so stubborn! This is a battle I'm losing. Oh well, whatever.

There's this field right in our subdivision with a bunch of weeds. They will eventually build houses there, but we took pictures there for fun. Mainly fun for me, but Jonas loved exploring.

 Besides that, Jonas has turned into an incredibly difficult and annoying defiant whiney child. I love him to death, but oh my gosh he can be so awful! He throws the biggest tantrums (I'm talking 30 minute tantrums) over the most ridiculous things. The last huge tantrum was he wanted his socks on when we were leaving grandma's house and I said no because he was going home to take a bath anyway, and I didn't want to take the extra time to put them on. He freaked out! And you know what? If I say something, I'm not going back on my word, so I'm very careful what I say to him because I will win every battle I pick. I just have to pick them wisely. And I let him win some battles, too, just so you know. He wins a lot of battles because there's some things I just don't care about.

I totally didn't mean to focus on the weeds in this pic but they were blowing and my camera focused on them right as I pushed the button. But I like how it turned out. Yay for mistakes, right?

 And he likes to pester his sister, but I've already mentioned that. I read two articles that were awesome about children being defiant and whiney. This one is about defiance and this one is about whining. The whining one really helped me to understand him better. And we're doing everything the one on defiance talked about, so I just hope he gets over this stage quickly. I'm getting really sick of it.

 But he does have his sweet moments. If I can get him to take a nap (which is rough in and of itself) then he's so much better and so cute and so sweet! He won't nap in his bed. If I do lay him in his bed he'll just talk the entire time (up to an hour and a half) and play in his bed. That's why I try to lay him in my bed, or the couch and hopefully he'll fall asleep there.

When he does nap, he's so cute! He helps out and talks in sentences and acts like a 3 year old. I love being with him when he's well rested. I love being his mom, but life is just rough for him right now and I wish I knew exactly why. I'm sure not having all the attention on him all the time is part of it, but I feel like there is more, I just don't know what it is. Oh well. Until I figure it out (or not), I'll keep on loving him and doing what I'm doing. He's my sweetheart - I tell him that all the time.