Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Sawyerisms

I have a major list of draft blog posts that I ought to get finished and put on here...but it ain't gonna happen today.

But just to tide you over - a few of Sawyer's latest. (I think 3 year-olds are so funny. They are generally able to express their thoughts and their thoughts are from such a kid perspective that it makes for some hilarious insights. Of course, he just walked over and dumped a bag of cereal on top of me and the computer because I told him he needed to share with Will, so not everything he does is that adorable.)

Last night we took the boys to "Family Math Night" at Will's school. We ended up in a class about ten frames. Which is a math concept I wasn't familiar with which involves putting counters on the squares of a 2x5 grid and is somehow supposed to teach them any number of great mathematical concepts. It seemed a lot more confusing than just counting to me, but whatever. The teacher had a game for the kids to play up at the board where they counted dots and took turns going up to put in the answer. The kids were sitting on a rug on the floor. Sawyer spent the whole time prone on the rug with his legs crossed "writing" on a piece of paper. He didn't appear to be paying any attention to the game. At the very end, Will told the teacher his brother really wanted a turn. Sawyer walked up and took a turn and sat down again and went back to doodling on his paper...he says he is writing but the only letters he writes are Qs and lots of little marks that look like tiny Vs. At the end of the class he handed me his paper and I said "Were you taking notes Sawyer?" and he responded "Yup. I was taking notes of everyone who didn't get a turn."

Then today I was in the shower. It may or may not have been 5 p.m. Sawyer came in my room and kept repeating something I couldn't understand. I told him to come in the bathroom and tell me and he kept saying something about cookies. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but I could tell by the way he kept trailing off and covering his face with his hands that it was a confession of some sorts. As far as I can tell he was saying that he already ate his cookie.....and then he ate all of Will's cookie too. He was apparently coming to tell me as a preemptive maneuver. I said "Oh. Is Will sad?" to which he brightly replied "Not yet!"

When I got out of the shower I heard a scuffling sound coming from the back of our dark walk-in closet. I expected to see one of the boys hiding in the back corner behind where my long winter dress coat hangs. I walked in and pulled the coat aside and found a wall of shoes about 12 pairs high barricading in the back corner and the noise was coming from behind them. I pulled out a shoe and saw Sawyer's eye staring out at me. He said "Mom, can you go out? I don't want Dad to see me in here." I asked, "Why not?" He said "Because he'll think I did this and I'll be in trouble." "I said, "Did what?" and he responded "Built this big wall of shoes!" So I put the shoe back and he sat there in the dark for a while until he got bored.

And I already put this one on facebook, but Sawyer threw a fit about the dinner menu the other night yelling "I only like almonds and figs and olives!" And he really does. A few days later we had Mexican food for dinner and he ate plain sour cream by the spoon full. But the next day he made me take the whipped cream off of his milk shake because it was yucky.

The Primary (children's group at church) sent home a questionnaire for the kids to fill out. Then they use the questionnaires to spotlight different children each week. I was trying to ask Sawyer the questions to fill out the form, but his answer for every question was "Poop" or something using "poopy" as an adjective. One of the questions was "What food do you think is gross?" and Sawyer kept insisting his answer was "poopy flower sandwiches." I told him that wasn't a food and he needed to think of an actual food like that Mom or Dad might give him for dinner. He got upset and said he liked them all and only "poopy flower sandwiches" are gross. We moved on. (I did NOT write poopy flower sandwiches.) Another question was "What makes you laugh every time?" for which his answer was, of course, "poop." Which, while pretty much true in his world, I didn't really want to write. I kept trying to get him to come up with something else, but he was throwing a fit and saying "Poop is the ONLY thing I think is funny." So finally I wrote it down and figured they could just use the other questions. As luck would have it he got to be the spotlight child that very day. And also lucky my awesome friend was the one reading the survey. And possibly because she has a 3 year-old boy of her own so she didn't just skip the "poop" answer. I had stayed home from church because I wasn't feeling well and Sawyer was so proud when he ran in and told me he was the spotlight child. I asked him what they talked about in Primary and he said "Poop!" He was very pleased with himself.

It is a good thing he does some pretty funny stuff sometimes, because some other elements of his current phase I really don't find amusing. Like refusing to get dressed. Ever. Because clothes (or shoes, or underwear, or socks, or whatever) "bug" him. Or screaming for 30 minutes in a biting, flailing rage because I told him he had to wear a swim diaper if he wanted to go to the pool. Or responding to everything he is asked or told to do with a threat. Or using threats to make requests - for example, "If you don't let me have a cookie I will call you stupid, but if you do let me have a cookie I won't!" or "Sawyer, you need to get dressed." "No! Or I'll hit you!" "If you hit me then you'll go to your room." "Then I'll kick my door!"