All, that is, except for Ig.
Ig will not wear pants, at least not voluntarily. Ig, for the last three weeks, has been fighting me tooth and nail every single morning because he wants to wear shorts. He doesn't like long pants. Left to dress himself, he will appear in the living room wearing pull-on shorts, a t-shirt and sandals, despite the fact that the outside temperature is 55 degrees.
Every day, it's a battle. We'll pick out clothes the night before, and I'll often compromise and let him pick out a short-sleeved shirt to wear with the super-soft track pants I bought him. But when the morning comes, the fight ensues.
I took the proactive measure of hiding all his shorts, which you'd THINK would have been effective. But no. The morning after I did this, Ig dressed himself in short pajama bottoms with a favorite t-shirt. Then he dug a pair of shorts out of a Goodwill bag.
For a few days, the morning battles were reduced in intensity because we agreed that Iain could wear the pajama shorts when he got home from daycare. Fair enough. Unfortunately, after about 5 days of wearing them (he will pull them out of the hamper), they absolutely needed to be washed! And as a working mother with three boys, I am, admittedly, not always on top of the laundry. The shorts are still waiting to be washed. Ig is not pleased.
Yesterday, I attempted to reward/bribe my son for putting on a pair of jeans. I told him if he put them on, he could have a lollipop. (Yes, it was 7:00 AM, but a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!) First, he held the jeans up to his waist, in front of him, and asked for the lolli. Nice try. Then,he actually did put them on, but said "he wasn't ready" to go to school, because he didn't want to wear long pants. For about the thousandth time this month, I tried to explain that:
- We need to wear LONG pants when it's cold.
- Look, Mommy's wearing long pants!
- Let's look at "The Snowy Day" (again). See the snow? It's cold, right? Is Peter wearing shorts? No! Peter's wearing (say it with me!) LONG PANTS!
...But to no avail.
There was endless crying. And Ig's cry, in situations like this, is almost identical to an infants cry - but with the power and volume of a four-year-old.
I offered him his lolly for keeping the pants on. "I don't want a lollipop! I want a push-up pop!" "But honey, we don't have any push-up pops. And I offered you a lollipop." "NO!!!"
Okay, so we left without the lollipop. Not that leaving was so easy. There was still resistance, screaming, continued crying. I cut my losses and let him wear crocs (forbidden in both daycare and preschool) and threw his sneakers and a hoodie into his backpack. Totally not worth the fight, when those could easily be addressed by the daycare staff.
Once we were about a block away from the house, Ig realized that he hadn't gotten his lollipop. Nevermind that he hadn't *wanted* it. The crying, at this point, turned to SCREAMING. Nearly ten minutes in the car (because, natch, we hit every possible red light), with a screaming child in the back seat. Nightmare. A friend pointed out that if a police car had pulled up beside me, it's very likely that I would have lost custody of my child. It sounded that bad.
He was still nearly hysterical when I brought him into daycare. Fortunately, for once, they caught on and pried him off me. Good thing, too - I had barely 10 minutes to catch my bus to work! I kissed him goodbye, knowing he'd be fine in a few minutes.
Anyhow....fortunately, our ABA therapist came last night. Needless to say, we asked her to spend a little time talking about this with him!
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