Haircuts were overdue. Both boys had hair in their eyes. I’m not sure if Aaron or Reed initiated the hair cuts, but it needed to happen.

Getting ready…I’m pretty sure that Reed could rock a Justin Bieber hairstyle if he wanted to.

This is the boys’ first hair cut at home in almost a year. We only cut their hair about twice a year(lazy?) and my sister cut it this summer.

He seems to enjoy this, but keeps asking for us to shave it all off.

Then, it was this little guy’s turn. He was pretty excited, too, although I always hate to see his curls go.

Around this point, Reed said, “he looks like Abraham Lincoln!!”

Lena watched. I asked if she wanted a hair cut and she told me that she likes her hair how it is. I’m totally fine with that, as long as we don’t have a repeat of one of the other times she cut her own hair.

It was after dark when Aaron was cutting their hair, but perhaps I’ll have to take some photos in daylight and show you how they’re both looking now!

Gus and I are a pair. Even though he now spends 12 hours a week at school, we still spend an awful lot of time together.

As much as I get worn out by his energy and need for attention, I have so much fun with him. He’s just a silly kid, always making us laugh.

We took some selfies together awhile back. I have no makeup on and I look totally ridiculous, but I love them anyways.

…not staying still for his picture!

One day I told him, “I love you, Gus”. And he replied, “I like you.”

The most “normal” one. Even though I closed one eye?

I love his smile in this one. Not sure what was going through MY mind at this point.

There’s also a bunch of totally ridiculous ones with funny faces, but I’ll spare you those!

I try to remember that this stage of life won’t last forever. In the next couple of years, he’ll go to school and he’ll slowly start becoming his own person, who doesn’t depend on me for entertainment and comfort and meeting needs. But, right now, I’m going to try to just enjoy him and keep being silly together.

You all know that Reed was a ninja for Halloween. But, did you know that ninjas unload the dishwasher?

It’s true!

This ninja loves to help, despite this overwhelmed look on his face. Well, he does find the silverware basket a bit overwhelming, lots of things go different places.

But, he can handle it. With no help from that silly dog there.

And, done.

Any other dishwashers out there that this young ninja can take care of for you?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about parenting is to think creatively.

Gus had been hating baths for quite awhile, about 6 weeks, if I remember correctly. He screamed if we tried to get him to take a bath or a shower, like something horrible was happening to him. Before this, he had been enjoying baths, since I made bath paint, so we’re not sure what happened. Either way, it was very frustrating, obviously not a good experience for him, and  time to make him like baths again.

I had an idea– to buy him a bath toy. But, this never works well if I intentionally drum up excitement with him. If we had gone to Target and I had said, “I will let you pick out any bath toy if you will take a bath”, he probably would have agreed at the store and then when we got home, just stared longingly at the toy while telling me “no thanks” on the bath. In my experience, it needs to be “his” idea.

Instead, I bought a $4 pack of bath crayons without him knowing. One evening, I took the crayons and sat on the side of the tub (fully clothed– in case you weren’t sure 🙂 ) and just started drawing all over the walls.

After just about a minute or two, Gus came looking for me. “Whatya doin, mama?” “Just coloring.” “Can I color?” “Yes, but only in the bathtub”. “Okay”. So, I put him in the bathtub, fully clothed. Almost instantly, he said “Can I have pants off?” “Sure!” But, keeping his shirt on, in a totally dry bathtub, he colored. I kept on coloring, too, like I was just enjoying myself and this was what people do– sit on the side of the bathtub and color.

After several minutes, I got up and got my camera and took a few photos of him.

In his own little world.

He kept turning to me and saying “whatya fink, mama? whatya fink?”

And, after a few more minutes, he said “Mama, can I have some bubbles and maybe some water?”

Bingo. That is exactly what I wanted!

And since then, he’s been regularly asking me for baths. One day, I picked him up at school and he informed me, “I need to take a bath tonight.” After we had been in the door for about a minute and it wasn’t even noon, he said “can I have a bath now?” My personal belief is that there’s no bad time for a bath, so of course he got it!

Although he’s enjoying them again, I’m being careful to be completely respectful about his wishes around bath time, taking him out just when he asks or letting him decline a bath if he doesn’t want to take one a particular day.

I love a little parenting win. I don’t expect things to always be this easy, but it’s nice to get it right for a change with just some bath crayons and a bit of patience!

When I first showed Gus his Halloween costume, he was SO excited.

A few people asked me where I got it. I got it on Yoyo, which is part of the Soap.com/Diapers.com family. If you haven’t checked them out, you MUST. They offer free one or two day shipping on most items and always have coupons for around 20% off.. They don’t have as much as Amazon, but they still have lot. Anyways, here’s the link. Watch the price– at the time of writing this blog post, it’s listed at almost $40. I paid about $12, with a couple of coupons, although the list price at that time was much cheaper, too. Anyways, just had to share about them. Not getting compensated in any way for it, but I just love them.

So, back to the story, the costume. I put it on him and he instantly turned into a fierce lion, playfully attacking me.

I asked him if we could go outside and take a few pictures.

I really wanted the cute, cowardly lion face, which I got when he saw a spider.

We just ran around the yard, being silly. I ended up being very glad that I took these, as he wanted to have nothing to do with his costume, come Halloween. Fortunately, I was able to convince him that costume = candy, but he didn’t want to wear it beyond that.

RAWR.

There’s a lot that I don’t love about Halloween, but I do wish that I had more excuses to dress my children up like furry animals. Love my little king of the forest.