In Which the Monkey Begins to Resemble His Mother

Monkey has always been pretty easy-going, but lately, he has really started to assert his own opinions and show his stubborn streak. Here's an excerpt of a recent conversation I had with him:

Me: "Jonah, can you please do [insert task or activity here]?"
Jonah: "No, I cannot." [It's cannot, not can't.]
Me: "Jonah, I think you can."
Jonah: "No, I cannot can!" [Commence screaming, whining, flailing and/or stomping of feet.]

I think part of it is the normal terrible twos stuff, but part of it is also the total and complete upheaval that he's been through over the past 6 weeks.

• We had to say goodbye to our fabulous nanny, Sabine, and our nanny-share partners. Since Amelia's mom had her little sister, and I'm not planning to go back to work full-time, we figured it made more sense for Sabine to work for them once Amelia's mom went back to work.
• I went away for a week.
• Once I got back, we had less than a week before we went away for Thanksgiving.
• Since I got back, day care has been a combination of two part-time babysitters, "emergency" day care at Bright Horizons (a benefit Matt gets from work), and a sporadic day off here and there with Daddy.
• And of course, the baby could come at any time, so we've been trying to prepare him for that. Although I'm not holding my breath, since Jonah was two weeks late!

I stumbled upon an article in the Globe recently about dealing with a three-year-old's specific behavioral issue, and some of the recommendations really struck me. Best of all, the author offered to send anyone who was interested a link to another article she had written that dealt with three-year-old behavior in general. I wrote her for the article, and I think it's really making a difference.

For example, lately, Jonah has been really resisting his bath. It's gotten to the point where he refuses to sit and pretty much screams the whole time. So last night, when he started to yell about how he did not want to take a bath, I thought I'd try some of the article's techniques. I squatted down at his level, and told him that while he had to take a bath, he had the choice of reading a story before his bath, or after his bath.

It worked like a charm, although he made up a new choice, that fortunately was a perfectly acceptable alternative. He grabbed a book off the table, and told me he wanted to read now, and then walked directly into the bathroom with the book. So I followed him in, and while Matt gave him his bath, I read the book to him. He got right into his tub, sat down with no struggles, and listened, laughed, and splashed - with only a minor screaming bout when it was time to rinse his hair.

What a relief! Now if we can just reacclimate him to the bath before his sister is born...because I don't think we'll be able to continue to do bathtime as a two-parent job!