Phases

    "It's probably just a phase."  Well, gee, I hope so!  And how many phases have my children been through in their short lives? 
     Well, there was the toilet paper phase.  Liam was so obsessed with using toilet paper that it became more of an experiment in an absorbency and less about actually cleaning his bottom.  I reached the breaking point when one day I entered the bathroom to see a mound of toilet paper rising out of the toilet.  I had to clean it up using a grocery bag... but the TP was so soggy that the bag was dripping... what a mess.
     There was the nose-picking phase.  Liam so wanted to just pick his nose and we so did not want him to.  Of course, most of the time he wanted to pick his nose in public too, which made matters worse.  The nose picking incidents called for drastic measures so I promised him candy if he could go sustained periods of time without digging for boogers.  Judge me if you would like, but he stopped picking within a few days.  On a side note, he never ate his boogers- which is great because that's really gross but it's also a bit concerning because you have to wonder where all of his boogers ended up... ?
     Many of my facebook friends will remember Liam in his baby powder phase.  He used to sneak shakes out of the baby powder and I would find them all over the baby's room.  Have you ever tried to wipe baby powder off of a bookshelf filled with books?  Needless to say, there's still some baby powder in the cracks of the bookshelf and on the wall behind the shelf.
        Joshua has had his share of phases. Recently he has been in a hat phase.  At his sitter's he insists on wearing a green safari helmet.  At home he wears his red plastic fireman hat.  He often insists on bringing it to bed with him.  We've actually found that wearing a hat is in his best interest when around his bigger brother.  It particularly came in handy when Liam budged him off of his stool while brushing teeth and sharing the sink.  Fortunately this hat phase hasn't ended it.  It's really too cute to say good bye to anytime soon.
     A less cute phase from Joshy is his baby phase.  He's almost two and, up until recently, has insisted on calling himself a baby.  If you said, "Big Boy", he would point to himself and say "Baby".  He really wasn't having any of this getting older crap.  In fact, he has decided that it's best to wake up before 6 am (like an infant) and refuse to eat unless he's being fed by his mommy or daddy.  He went on a utensil strike to demonstrate what a baby he is.  I see right through his plan though- I packed him a bowl of yogurt to take to the sitter and watched as he pleasantly took out a spoon and neatly fed himself yogurt at her house.  Got you, Josh, got you.
     Phases really do keep us on our toes.  Which family hasn't endured the "why" phase?  Or the phase where the little one just can't sleep if he/she isn't in your bed with you?  And just when you think you can't stand any more of a phase... it continues (not gone so easy)... until one day it just disappears whether you like it or not.  The funny thing is that even though many of these phases so permeated our everyday lives, looking back a few months or years later it's so easy to forget them! 
     I can't believe it but I almost forgot Liam's scary monkey phase. Oh was he ever scared of that scary monkey.  We never could figure out which monkey was the scary monkey, considering that his room had a jungle theme. So we removed all monkeys from the room.  Oddly enough, he slept with a rattle snake in his bed but apparently that wasn't as scary as the monkey.  Now Joshua loves his jungle-themed monkey room.  He can't stop talking about monkeys.  He likes to walk around with monkeys hanging over his shoulders with velcro paws.  Come to think of it, maybe that's his way of making Liam keep his distance...