testing, testing

Sebastian has been really testing us lately - testing the boundaries of behavior, testing how far he can push us, testing to see if we mean what we say. It's been exhausting and frustrating. Nothing out of the ordinary, I'm sure, but hard to deal with, especially as it's such a contrast with his usual sweet, compliant self. There's been a lot of no. And running away from us and hiding. And refusing to sit at the dinner table. And doing things he knows he isn't allowed to do. His verbal way of expressing this recalcitrant self is to say "bang". It's like a preschooler version of damn, no, I hate you, and f*** you, all wrapped up in one neat little package. So we'll ask him to do something, and he'll say "bang". And then he'll keep repeating it as he realizes he's getting under our skin, at increasing volume, until we tell him to stop it. And then he says "bang you!" Awesome.

Fortunately, the best solution seems to be outdoor exercise and play. He's nearly always happy and cheery when we're outside, and so we've been dragging him out at every opportunity and inventing new ways to encourage him to run. And his crankiness isn't nonstop, every day, which is nice - we still hang out with our sweet boy some of the time.