Tiring...

They said three was harder than 2.

Here is how my Ben time looked today:
Woke him up with kisses.  A happy boy who slept from 8 to 6:30.  a lovely start.
As long as he gets to choose his own underwear we are good to go with the dressing and brushing and washing.
Down the stairs we go to pack the bag and get out the door to walk the dog by 6:45 (he eats a bit of breakfast in the car).
But it started to go bad quick.
Mama's keys were missing.  The one's that start the car.  Bad.  Very very bad.
Dude remembered playing combine operator the night before.  Right here mama.  They were here on the table.  Of course he had no idea where they were as the clocked ticked away this morning.
45 minutes.
I searched for 45 minutes.
Every surface in every room that is at or below ben's reach when standing on his stool.  Small house but lots of surfaces.
The phone was in my hand.  The VP's number was in my other hand.  I decided to pullout the couch and take one more look and there they were.  Nestled nicely onto the back of a farm tractor.

Tonight we arrived home, had our 90 minute walk the dog ride the strider around the neighbourhood so I'll sleep at 8pm exercise period.  A good filling dinner.  A visit with the neighbour, his buddy Tristan.  And then home to bed.
Except he was not a fan of going home.  At all.  I gave him about a million chances to walk on his own in a non-draggedbyanangrymama fashion as we traversed the 4 townhome space between our place and Tristan's but every single time I let go of his hand he started the bolt back to his buddy's place.
He had his most spectacular fit EVER once I got him in the door.  He kicked that door and screamed for a full 10 minutes.  Can't remember the exact words but he was essentially telling me where I could stuff his bedtime baba-and he wasn't telling me to put it back in the fridge.

So, closer to 9 by the time he wound up and then wound down again.

A few points to ponder.

The 123 Magic behavioural technique worked well with Ben UNTIL this week when he started counting in order to discipline me!  Um, no more counting buddy.  Now I say it once, give you a bit of choice (please put on your boots or your shoes) and then it happens.  Probably why the fit was special-er than normal.  Tonight's choice was "you may walk nicely to our home or I will hold your hand and help you walk".

The phase when every single utterance coming from his sweet mouth starts with "I NEED...."?  Not a pretty phase.  Not from the kid who was all pees, tanktoo, may I just last week.

And the me do it?  I get it.  And he can do so much of "it".  He really can.  And I encourage him to do"it" all day long.  However, if he asks me to carry him and snuggle him on the way to the bathroom in the morning where I put him down on the stool and he proceeds to scream "I DO IT" and has to walk all the way back into his room, climb up into the bed, get UNDER the flipping blankets, put his head down and pretend to snore and then head back into the bathroom all by himself...well it starts to grate on my nerves.  If I had encouraged him to walk by himself he would have melted down.

Yikes.  The little dude is so, so wonderful and very very tiring.  I find myself trying to guess his reaction to each and every request...