Funny Erik

Yesterday Erik came down to the garden with me and helped me pull weeds. He was so funny. First he used his shovel and dug up a bunch of dirt. Then he used a hand rake and raked the dirt. Then he got my little watering can and asked me, "Mama, is it ok if I water your dirt?"

Yesterday morning I took the kids to the store to buy diapers. When we got home I found Erik had left his blanket laying on the floor next to a water bottle. The cap was loosened and the blanket was soaking. So I hung it up in the bathroom, sort of grumbling a little. I came back into the dining room and Erik said, "It's ok, mama, everybody makes mistakes sometimes."

This morning we got off to a rocky start. Erik was very physical and was alternating between pestering Adin and banging household stuff around. I was alternating between snapping at him to stop and trying to redirect him to some other way to burn off his energy. We went in his room to get him and Adin dressed. He put his sheet around his neck and told me he was a bad guy. Why? Because he stood on chairs. I said, "that doesn't sound like something a bad guy would do, that sounds like something a good guy would do when he was making a mistake." I was sort of suspecting this bad guy persona was because of all my nagging and I wanted to backpedal! So every time he said something about being a bad guy, I would say something about how much I loved him even when he was being a bad guy. Pretty soon he stopped snarling and started smiling.