I don't like some kids.

Yesterday at the park Jake was sitting in his stroller and we were walking toward him. Two kids, maybe 5 or 6, walked around the corner with toy light sabers. They saw Jake and said, "A baby! Let's kill it!"

Then they saw us and got all scared. They went off to the grass and started bashing each other with the light sabers.

As they were hitting each other they chanted, "Kill the baby! Kill it!"

When Jake gets angry.

When Jake gets angry or frustrated he takes his baseball hat and off his head and throws it as hard as he can on the ground.

Like a baseball player losing his temper with the umpire.

It's funny, but you can't laugh. Other people also find it funny.

Jake lied.

Cindy caught Jake in his first lie.

He was playing with the kitchen drawers and he got his finger caught in the drawer. He started to cry and ran over for a hug.

A few minutes later he went back to the drawers. Cindy was watching him. This time he faked hurting himself and ran over for a hug.

My son has discovered the joy of lying.

***

Another cute thing he does is direct our gaze by pulling our face in the direction he wants us to look- which is mostly at him.

The other day he was sitting on my lap while we watched Youtube. I guess he was signing for a certain song and I was watching the computer. He gently grabbed my face and turned it toward him so that I could see his signing.

Our babysitter can't handle Jake.

So we found out this weekend that our babysitter can no longer handle Jake. This was the person we were planning to have take care of Jake for a couple days when the baby is born.

She could handle him when he was one, but she doesn't seem to be able to handle his terrible twos phase.

We dropped him off at her house over the weekend and when we came back 7 hours later, he hadn't eaten or drank anything. He has been balling his eyes out. He had been inconsolable.

What happened? Why didn't he get fed? She said, "I didn't want to upset him anymore." Apparently he went on a hunger strike and she didn't push him.

Well Jake needs to be pushed. A lot. Sometimes downright forced. We often need to "help" him eat by holding him still and putting the food in his mouth for him.

We don't expect our babysitters to do that, but we do expect an attempt. How can we drop him off at her house for 2 days? He needs food and drink, and we don't want her hooking him up to the feeding pump.

Grrr. So frustrating...

A useless book about how to get your child to eat.

I'm skimming Just two more bites! : helping picky eaters say yes to food by Linda D. Piette and have quickly determined that the book is useless for us.

First, it's written by a pediatric nutritionist. Right there is a warning flag. Nutritionists don't know how to get kids to do things. Behaviourists do.

Second, the book is filled with tons of dull common sense advice - the kind of advice the community medical people told us. "Try a new sippy cup." "Keep meals short." "Don't get into a battle over food."

Third, on page 81 she says, "Don't use food to bribe or reward or punish." While technically correct, we were told that Jake needs his positive behaviour reinforced.

At the beginning she writes, "The trick is to act like you don't care if your kid eats or not."

For Jake, that didn't work either. He started eating when we applauded him and acted like we cared.

The rest of the book goes into boring boring detail about recipes and multi-vitamins and different types of personalities. Very little practical information here.

Unfortunately, there are lots of books like this out there. Jake needs to be pushed, encouraged and basically forced to eat. Books by medical professionals that basically tell you not to push your kid are simply not effective for us.

Jake plays with a doll.

The daycare told us that Jake likes one of the dolls; so we went to Zellers and bought a huge baby doll. We tried to get the least ugly one because some of them were freaky.

We use the doll to "model" behaviours for Jake. For example, brushing his teeth is a bit of a struggle. We gave Jake the toothbrush and asked him to brush the "baby's" teeth. He seems to love it. We also get him to brush the baby's hair, but he just bashes the baby's head with brush.

We say, "be gentle", but that doesn't work too well. Sometimes he gets mixed up and brushes the baby's mouth with the hairbrush. Also, he'll often brush the baby's eyes and face instead of his teeth.

We also tell Jake that the baby's sleeping now. We lay it down and pull the blanket over it. Then he smiles and signs "sleep".

Soon we're going to start "feeding" the baby.