A Few Days at Home

It's been a busy several days at home - lots of adjusting on everyone's part but things are getting better.

The tantrums are better, we think mainly because there's a place for Elkin to go by himself. In the airport, when he got upset and wanted his space, there was nowhere for him to go - thus the spitting, hitting, pinching, etc. when we had to physically restrain him. And he's a very strong almost-3-year-old. Plus we're learning how to deal with him in specific situations - something that obviously had to come with a little experience with him.

The trips out have been almost perfect. He loves riding in the car and if we keep moving around in the store and around town (which is our natural state anyway) he seems very happy. He's usually fine coming home too. I don't know if there's any child psychology to back this up, but we like the fact that we're occasionally going out and coming back to the same place. That isn't something he's had with us much lately (hotel to hotel to hotel). We think it surely helps reinforce that this is home.

We're really looking forward to his language developing more. It's really hard to convey that something is his but he can't use it right now for a very good reason or that dinner will be here in an hour and we're not just saying no to more snacks because we're mean people. We know some of that is just three year old stuff but it would certainly be nice if he could at least understand even if he disagrees.

On a lighter note! He loves his new tricycle (which he calls a motorcycle of course - the kid's in love with anything on wheels) and he took a ride this morning in the driveway. It's extra cold here for mid October so we got him all dressed up in winter garb. Surely it's the first time he had a stocking hat or gloves on. It didn't get much below 80F where he came from.