Wishes and Independence

This past weekend we went over to Bruce's brothers house for his niece Danielle's birthday so we could give her the gift and sing to her. Nathan and his cousin Alex (who is almost exactly a year older) were running around screaming and carrying on. You know....being normal boys. They were quite loud, so Susie told them to go downstairs and play. Bruce went and checked on the boys at a later time and seen that the boys were playing Wii. Well, the next day while we were folding laundry Nathan tells us that he knows what he wants for his birthday. He told us a Wii. Our immediate response was absolutely not. We didn't think that he even knew what a Wii was because we try to keep the "high end" or the "high tech" toys out of his sight. With one little brother, and another on the way, we know that those toys are sensitive to their destruction. After giving it another moment of thought I told Nathan that we would get him a Wii for his birthday if he could sleep in his bed every night until his birthday. I don't see that happening....

Darren has become very independent lately. He has to zip up his pajamas when we put them on, he has to turn off the room light, he has to throw his diaper in the trash. He has to comb his own hair after his bath, wants to pick out his own clothes after I already have him dressed in the morning and the list goes on and on. I finally just started picking two outfits out in the morning and letting him choose one of the two; it has made for a whole lot less yelling and tears in the morning. The other morning, things came to a head. I will admit that I yell at the boys in the morning because they are taking too long or they don't want to get out of bed or they can't find the toy they want to take to daycare. It all started out normal enough in that Darren wanted to wear his boots. The problem arose when I tried to put them on the correct feet. Every time I would put them on, he would kick them off and insist that I am putting them on the wrong feet. After me screaming at him like a crazy lady, I just let him wear his boots on the wrong feet and then we were both happy! He is too darn stubborn/independent for his own good!