Bad Behaviour

I can tell Joseph is settling into pre-school. He's confident enough to be naughty now. At the start, he had something of a confident shyness about him, he didn't have the massive screaming tantrums or melt down into tears, he just looked very sad and just kept asking "Why?" when I said I had to go. "I'm too big and too old." I told him. He still looked sad.
He didn't want to sit with the other children. He just wanted to play in the sand - just the sand and nothing else. As I said, confident in his shyness. I would go and pick him up and he'd say that he was ok - but he missed his house. Yes, that's where he went first, not me or his baby brother or even his toys - his house.
He's managed to make a couple of friends in his little group. I asked him what their names were: -
"Angry Boy and Pants - because I shout pant at him."
"Why do you shout Pants at him? That's not very nice!"
"But he shouts pants at me!"
Angry Boy is so named because they just shout. I have mentioned at other times that I have little understanding of the male mind and the mind of a three year old boy is shrouded in deep layers of mystery. These boys a friends and they like shouting at each other. His pre-school keyworker said that Joseph and Pants (I'm not going to use his real name, I do know it but for privacy's sake... no, it's just coz it's funny, I'm sticking with Pants) were as thick as thieves and having lots of fun, but don't worry, he didn't wet himself, they had to change Joseph's trousers because he'd had a little too much fun in the sand pit.
I got home, got the dirty trousers out of the bag and promptly got wet sand everywhere. Fun in the sandpit, according to Joseph meant he and Pants had dug a big hole, Joseph had got in and then buried himself with a little help. The problem with sand is it just gets everywhere. It's clingy when wet, but scatters off like mad when dry. I washed said trousers - they were new and all, the one day he goes in with new trousers and he tries to wreck them - and there was still sand on them and in the pockets.
I got to meet Angry Boy in the queue one morning as we were waiting to be let in. He had some lengths of dry grass in his pocket which he was calling sticks so they were happily shouting "Sticks!" at each other for a while. Then one of them decided they were bread sticks and that was shouted too. No, I don't know why.
On two occasions I have gone to pick up my lovable little scamp and been told that his listening skills have a little something to be desired. I am aware of this, Joseph will often decide to not listen when being told something he doesn't like or isn't interested in. I have at times held his head in both my hands and looked him right in the eyes and still what I am saying does not go in.
We're working on it, but it's very hit and miss. Having tried one or two ways round with the whole discipline thing, we've gone back to bribery. The carrot is better than the stick, or at least a whole lot less stressful.
He doesn't even like carrots, but there you go. We're using skittles right now. I line them up on a shelf he can see but can't reach. Whatever it is we're trying to do, be it getting dressed, tidying up or eating dinner he knows that if he's given warnings and told off enough times then I'll start eating them. And that would totally ruin my diet.

In other news Daniel is still a bit ill, there's nothing so sad as a baby with a chesty cold except the mother of a baby with a chesty cold who keeps being woken up in the night. Sometimes putting the dummy back in works, sometimes not. Sometimes he just needs a cuddle, sometimes I have to feed him, sit with him for a bit and make sure he's nice and snug and warm before he'll give up and go back to sleep, usually just as I've got to the interesting bit of the program I'm watching on Netflix to help me stay awake. I'm really getting my moneys worth out of the subscription at the moment.