A Sippy Cup

Drew had a first the other day, and the fact that it took 3 1/2 before this revelation, impressed me.

The other night Drew was going to bed, and being the master negotiator he is, got out of bed and asked me for books and a toy. Any excuse to get out of bed, he takes, and this is just another one he uses. Since Cristina and I have no problem with him reading in bed, and taking a toy or two to sleep with him he knows is a "reasonable" request. I told him to go back to bed and I would bring him a book and a toy. He ran to his room and a moment later...Thud. Usually this isn't followed by anything. Drew falling out of his bed is not a very rare occurence and he usually just gets back in his bed.  Not this time.  Shrieks of pain are all I hear.

I run in the room, Drew is standing by his clock holding his mouth crying.  I throw his books on the bed, and pick him up taking him to the bathroom to get in the light and look at his mouth.

Blood.

His mouth was covered in blood, I couldn't even see his teeth.  Now I am getting worried, did he lose a tooth?  Chip one, is this emergency room time...I just need him to spit out the blood so I can see his teeth and make sure they are all where they are supposed to be.  I tell him to spit in the sink and Drew transforms into a boxer who just finished a nasty round, it is bright crimson and thick...uh oh I think to myself.  But even with the spitting I can't see his teeth.  I grab his water cup and ask him to take a sip.

Well he won't, he flatly refuses to take a sip of water from his cup; the reason is understandable too.  "No Daddy! I don't want red to get in it" he sobs.  This is when it dawns on me, this is the first time really that he has seen his own blood, and for that matter any blood.  I try two, three, four times to get him to drink water, and he only gets more panicked.  I realize I just need to calm him down first and then get him to drink.

I hug him, rub his back, give him kisses, and he is still crying.  Time to call in the big guns of comfort, the mama.  Cristina comes in and holds him and he calms down, I ask again if he will take a drink and he retorts, "No I don't want red to get in it."  I am stumped, I do need to see his teeth, but without him washing his mouth out with water I have bupkis.  And then it hits me, just work with his motivation.  So I run to the kitchen, grab a sippy cup and fill it with water.  I run back and explain to drew, here drink the water from this, the red won't get in, but the water gets out...he takes the sippy cup and starts drinking.  Victory, and his teeth are okay too.

Drew - You can see a slight bruise on his chin

My son is particular, but in all honesty aren't we all.  The difficulty at times is he isn't always able to articulate why he wants to do certain things, and being that I can't always figure it out, it can be frustrating.  Take for example when it is 40 degrees outside and he won't wear pants, and throws a fit if I try to force pants on him.  When I convince him to wear pants, he sometimes walks holding his pant legs up as if to turn his pants into shorts.  I know he isn't hot, because he will run to the car and beg to get inside cause it's "chilly."  It took almost a six months to have him tell us he can't see his shoes (they light up when he walks)

My dad once told me a story about my older brother Matt, when he was 2 or 3.  As my dad was dressing him, Matt kept crying and trying to take off his shoes.  It wasn't until he had tried for a while keeping his shoes on and putting them back on, when he finally decided to look inside the shoe and he saw the stuffing in the toes of the shoes.  Matt wasn't acting different or crazy or being difficult, it hurt.  Fast forward 34 or so years later and Sean is walking with a limp, this is not normal for him and he keeps trying to take off his shoes (this is normal), his way to say "I'm pissed Mom and Dad."  I keep stopping him as normal, and then decide maybe his foot hurts and take his shoes and socks off and check his feet, nope nothing out of the normal, finally I put his shoes back on.  Again he walks off with a limp.  I pick him up, take off the shoes and socks, nothing abnormal.  I am about to put the shoe back on, when Matt as a toddler pops into my head, I look inside the shoe that was on the foot he was limping with and sure enough stuffed, this time with dirty socks.  

Sometimes just telling my kids to do something, or making them, doesn't work.   If you figure out what is motivating them...maybe you won't need to even ask.

Life over a sippy cup of water.