Not always our perfect little angel

Most of the posts in this blog will offer glowing or humorous accounts of our children, but in the interest of using it for catharsis, here are two things that bummed me out briefly this week:

-On Wednesday morning, Jana tried to dress Will in the shirt I brought him back from Germany. It's a cool shirt, a T-shirt jersey of Berlin's big soccer team, Hertha BSC, and I looked all over to get him one. He refused to put the shirt on, saying that he didn't like it and never wanted to wear it. This after declaring it "not a good gift" when I pulled it out of my suitcase upon arriving home.

After working himself up into a fury, he then came down stairs, looked at the TV (which had CNN election coverage on), and wailed "I don't like watching the Badger game, it's boring!"

Great start to my day!

He eventually willingly wore the shirt the next day, and gleefully told his teachers it was his Germany shirt his daddy brought him. And he also wanted to wear his Badgers shirt, so his second comment didn't bother me too much - I think he equates anything that isn't a "kids movie" with "Badger game," including CNN.

-Also this week, Will came home with five Matchbox cars from day care in his pockets. This wasn't the first time something like this has happened - last week he came home with Lincoln Logs. Guess who he blamed both times? That's right, Logan. Sidebar: tonight he suggested Logan as a baby name. We'll probably pass on that one. According to Will, Logan told him to take the things, even if he didn't.

We told our son (over and over) that we don't care what Logan says, we care what Will does. The old "If Logan told you to jump off a bridge" line doesn't really work yet, but that's where we were going. Other measures included: giving toys away every time he brings a toy home; pocketless pants (half-kidding); pat-downs before we leave day care (half-kidding); bare-butt spankings (kidding).

Ironically, the next day he came home singing a song about the Hamburgler - apprently they got some McDonald's-produced videos free or cheap - and about how stealing was bad.

As long as taking Matchbox cars home from school doesn't end up on Will's permanent record, we're OK here, just part of Raising Tappas!