Hit Kenny

We are slowly hitting the terrible 2's with Mason. It has been a very hard transition for us so far. We are use to having a sweet, cuddly baby. Now we have Mr. No who does everything you tell him not to do. After we introduced Star Wars to him (which he L-O-V-E-S) he really started acting out. We thought he had picked up some bad habits from the movie (lightsaber fighting) but now we think it's monkey see monkey do at daycare.

In the mornings and afternoons the daycare combines all the kids into the big play room. Great for the teachers; not so great for us. There are 2 older boys, brothers, that Mason plays with each day and has picked up some "moves". The 2 boys technically aren't doing anything wrong. Like all brothers, they rough house and pick on each other. Our problem is Mason's age. He is too young to know when it's ok to rough house and when it is mean.

The biggest problem is hitting. He hits EVERYONE! If you tell him "No" or put him in timeout, he will hit or swat at anything that is close to him. He will also "ninja" hit you (he pops up from out of nowhere and smacks you). We tell him hitting is not nice, that it hurts, that you do not hit friends, etc etc but nothing works. We pop his booty and put him in timeout but it doesn't make a difference. He sees the 2 older boys hitting each other and he thinks that is how you play. He will repeat "Hit Kenny" over and over. Sometimes he will even replace Kenny with another classmate or our name.

Our next problem is him running and slamming into things. He picked this up from the older kids running full speed into the mat that hangs on the playroom rock climbing wall. Yeah, its fun until his head hits you in between the legs, a wall, or piece of furniture. He is just too young to know its ok to smack the matted wall and not a human!

He also kinda wrestles/fights. We hear, "Fight Kenny" as well. He even put his dukes up and started bopping himself in his chin like he was boxing! Once again, perfectly fine for an older kid who knows the difference between play and real fighting; however, Mason doesn't yet.

He spends more time in timeout from hitting that he does anything else. His next worse offense is not listening. Can't imagine where he got that from... I ask his teacher everyday how his day was and sometimes I do get good reports (when I say good I mean only a few times in timeout that day). One day I got there early and his teacher said she hoped she was gone before I got there so she didn't have to tell me how bad he was that day!

And I hear 3 is the worst... So that means its going to get worse for it gets better...