Lately my little guy doesn't seem quite so, well, little anymore. In fact, he seems quite determined to show me how big and independent that he is becoming. At times, it means that he wants to do everything for himself, and gets quite frustrated when he can't or if we don't let him. At other times, it means imitating everything I do. Sometimes it is cute, sometimes it's annoying, sometimes it is just completely hysterical.
The only problem is that when things don't go as he likes, he is very quick to voice his frustration, and usually in a very loud and dramatic manner. I have been reading different articles about trying to help manage toddlers' frustration, and these articles often say to try to let toddlers feel like they have some control in their life by letting them make some of the less important decisions in their life.
I had already been trying to do just that. So, we let Eric choose his breakfast, and what he wants for dessert after dinner. We usually have a selection of different yogurts and fruits. In the morning, he almost always chooses natural unflavored and unsweetened greek yogurt. Sometimes, though, he surprises me by choosing something else.
Eric and Mauri took me out for my birthday
Clothing seems to be a more important decision for him, though. He is very passionate about what he wears, and will get very upset if you put something different on him. It is very predictable that no matter what options you give him, he will pretty much always choose something with a "guau guau" on it. There are only so many "guau guau" t shirts, though, that you can find in the stores.
Luckily, I had already made a few guau guau shirts in the past. So, amongst his favorite shirts are the ones I made with transfers last year (the "pop" t-shirt of Sheena's face, and the comic style shirt with pictures of him and Sheena). Sadly, though, the transfers are finally starting to crack and get a bit ugly.
I had also found a picture online that we both liked of a dog on a surfboard (Eric had excitedly pointed to it saying "guau guau") and I made him a trial t-shirt from it by printing it out on printable fabric sheets appliquéd onto a t-shirt. That t-shirt has held up pretty well, despite repeated washings, but the picture is starting to fade quite a bit.
In the interest of having these shirts last a bit longer, I did try to fix them to a certain extent this week. I ironed on a clear transfer over the cracking t-shirts, and they look OK, but I'm not sure how they will hold up. As for the fading t-shirt, I touched up the colors a bit with some fabric markers. That will hopefully give it a little bit longer life. I figured, though, that the best way of making them last would be to make him some more guau guau shirts to get into circulation, giving the other ones a bit of a break.
It was the perfect chance to get to experiment and play with my birthday present, a Silhouette Cameo machine. I had already been having fun making t-shirts for Eric with freezer paper stencils, but I was getting tired of trying to painstakingly cut my designs out of the paper with an x-acto knife. The silhouette is a small plotter that looks like a printer, and connects to your computer allowing you to cut designs out of a variety of different materials. The nice thing about it is that you can make your own designs, so you aren't limited to having to buy cartridges that only cut out a limited number of patterns.
At first, I found it a bit tricky, but I am getting better at converting pictures into files with the cut lines that I need for making a good stencil.
I spent lots of time looking for fun pictures and logos with guau guau's online, and started to make Eric some new t-shirts with some of the cuter ones that I had found.
When I had bought the machine, I also ordered some fabric transfer vinyl for plotters, and I ended up cutting out some guau guaus with Eric's name for ironing on other clothes. I started to iron them onto the front of some cheap, plain briefs that I had bought for Eric, anticipating potty training, on sale. Partway through ironing them all on, though, I got an idea for getting Eric to put on clothes he normally refuses to wear. I took one of the iron-on transfers that I had just made and ironed it onto a striped Old Navy shirt that we had bought on our last trip and which we, of course, liked more than Eric. Being a white transfer on a white and yellow shirt, it isn't distracting, but it was just enough to make Eric very happy to wear his "new" shirt.
The only problem with having him so happy to wear his clothes, though, is that it makes him all the more unhappy when we take them off. So, when we take off his new shirts at school so that he can play in the water with the other kids, he hysterically screams out "guau guau" as he tries to put his shirts back on.
This, however, is nothing new. He's been getting upset about removing his shoes or clothes, especially shirts, for quite some time now. Unlike other kids who seem to like to enjoy running around without clothes, Eric likes to be covered up. He has a certain idea of how he is supposed to be dressed, and gets upset when reality and his ideas are not exactly in sync.
That actually makes me a bit worried about eventually potty training him. One of the reasons that many kids like the process is that they can run around without their diapers anymore. Dirty or wet diapers have never seemed to bother Eric much, and I think having him go without his diaper would make him have a fit. The only thing that makes me think differently, is that he does like to do things by himself, and has recently taken an interest in other people using the toilet. At both school and home he has started to say "pee pee" and point at the urinal. (If I ask him if he wants to try to go pee pee there, though, he decidedly shakes his head "No!") So, who knows, he might surprise me sometime soon.
I have been tempted to try to give one of the quick toilet training methods a not-so-serious try. It's not like I'm in a rush to get Eric out of his diapers. On the other hand, we have a cruise planned (crazy us!!)
What does that have to do with toilet training you ask? Well, on the cruise, non toilet trained kids cannot go into the pools. This one seems to have a fun pool area for kids, and I can imagine him screaming because he wants to go into it. If he had been a year older, it would have also made a big difference for the kids club. They only take 3 year olds who are potty trained.
We probably don't really have enough time to get him potty trained by then, though, even if we were serious about it. So, rather than making a big deal about it, I think I'll just take an inflatable pool that will both serve as a in-cabin bathtub and a place for Eric to splash around on the pool deck. I've read about a lot of people who do that with their toddlers. I am tempted to give it a try, though, and see how he reacts to the urinal. He has shown a bit of an interest in it lately, and with the weather being nice and warm, now would be the ideal time to play around with it.
Really potty training will likely wait until next summer, but I'm also a bit worried about that because Eric will have to start "real" school the following fall, and he is supposed to be potty trained by then. It seems to me like it is cutting it close. I've heard horror stories about kids who aren't completely potty trained when school starts, so I don't want that for Eric.
Yes, real school for Eric here will start before he is even 3 years old!!! There is no kindergarden or anything similar beforehand either. The first years of school are not mandatory, but it seems that if you don't start them out right away, you have a hard time getting into a good, nearby school. You see, here in Spain you don't have school districts in which you automatically are assigned to the school of the district in which you live. While you are supposed to have priority for the nearby schools, those may already be "filled up" and you may be stuck driving across to the other side of town to bring your child to the school to which he is assigned.
Eric in Tita's pool pool
I have a hard time understanding this system, especially since they don't have a school bus system set up in which the kids are picked up nearby your home and brought to their school. I don't understand the logic of making school mandatory, but not facilitating the process of getting kids to school. It is like they are forcing you to drive your children across town on a daily basis. Not only is it a big waste of energy and bad for the environment, but it makes it impossible to drive around Denia at certain hours of the day because the kids are either being dropped off in the morning, picked up for lunch, dropped off after the siesta, picked back up again in the afternoon...
With his new "guau guau" floaties.
So, no, I'm not a big fan of the non-continuous school schedule so popular here either. I don't understand taking 2 hours off at lunch time and then having to go back to school again in the afternoon for only a an hour or two. It makes no sense, and only seems like a waste of natural resources once again.
Other differences that I find interesting is that even in the public schools, you must pay (and they aren't cheap!!) for the kids' books. Even growing up in a private school, I remember going to the bookstore and purchasing used books to save money, and being able to return them for a little bit of money back at the end of the year. Books didn't get that expensive until college, and as far as I know, the kids in the public schools were leant their books for free. Here, the government likes to charge for everything, and make it look like they are doing so much for "free," but in the end I don't really see that there are really that many "free" things here.
Do they get "free" drivers' education classes here like we did? No!!! You must pay what will likely be in the thousands of euros to get a drivers' license. (And you will need it to bring your child across town to the school of their choice.) "Free" Buses? No!!! "Free" books?? Why of course not. What we will do, though, is make you drive your kid to school- we may even make you drive a large distance because the nearby schools are "full." We will charge you a yearly "car tax" (seriously- not a circulation tax- there's that too, but there is an actual tax here just for owning the car!!!!!). We will also charge you to have us say that your car is "safe" each year or every couple of years, depending upon how old it is, in some ridiculous ritual called the ITV. We will also charge more than 50% of the cost of fuel in extra taxes.
New signs I made for the classrooms of the new school using my new Silhouette Cameo
I'd better not get started here. I'm waiting for the "life" tax to come out soon. You know the one where you have to pay a living tax just for being alive each year. I'm sure that will come with a supplement that will check on how often you breathe per minute, and will tax you the proportionate amount for carbon dioxide emissions. (I'd better not give any ideas.) It just seems so ridiculous. You get taxed when you make money, and when you spend it. What gives the government the entitlement to take away a third of what you have worked so hard to earn, and then take away another now-over a fifth of it when you spend it (IVA 21% Are you kidding me???). Of course, if you spend it on gas or electricity for your house, be prepared to pay over half of those costs (again) in taxes to the government.
Sorry about getting off topic. I don't know of it is because of all of the new tax hikes here when I already thought the taxes here were ridiculous, or if it is because I'm sick of seeing political endorsements on Facebook due to the upcoming US elections. I'm seriously already wanting to unfriend a few people by now. In the interest of not annoying others as much as I've been annoyed lately, I will change topics. I will just say that I'm surprised that there aren't more libertarians out there. I've been in their camp for years now after taking a political test (link to a much shorter, similar quiz) that named me a strong libertarian during college, and then reading up more about them. It seems to me by now that it should be glaringly obvious that the parties on either side of the political spectrum in either country just want to keep taking and keep spending without much concern for their citizens. Neither side seems to want to cut government a bit, which would greatly help in cutting spending, and would be better for the economy than trying to take a fifth of everything one spends in taxes (after all of the other taxes you already have!!) I just don't understand how things just keep getting worse and nobody does anything about it. Oh well, enough of that. I guess that's just mommy trying to assert her independence too!!!
Back to Eric!!
Eric has been surprising me lately...
In fact, since I wrote all of that days ago, Eric has since gone peepee and poopoo in the potty!! Really!!! So maybe I will have a chance at potty training him before our cruise. I still think that it probably won't happen, but you never know. Stranger things have happened. In the interest of getting an already late post up, I'll save that story for the next post.
Here's a relatively old video of Eric playing around:
Bubbles video:
I'll try to get some more up soon. I have videos from our little pool, and from our visits to "Tita's pool pool," or Maite's pool, as Eric refers to it.
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