Robert has been stringing a few more words together lately. His most frequent one - much to the joy of the Wagner side of the family - is "Go Gators" (go gay-gohs). That usually comes on when he sees his football, any t-shirt/hat with the Gator logo, any football game...

When we put him to bed at night, we give him kisses and say, "I love you." He will then usually repeat "yuh you" to us. But the other day, he came up to Mikaela when she was on my lap and said it to her - unsolicited!

His temper, however...

I don't know what we're going to do with this child. He's got a stubborn streak a mile wide. And he gets it in his head that he needs things a certain way (like, he wants to hold his water cup while we pray, and will throw a screaming fit if we put it in the crib instead - screaming "WAH WAAAAAH" the whole time until he gets it (once - never again) or gets a spanking. If we give him the water, he still says wah-wah over and over and over again. So he doesn't get it while we pray. He's also starting to refuse to say amen to prayers, too... so we keep saying, "Say amen. Say amen please, Robert." over and over again until he does... with much screaming and head-banging on his part, too. He's been doing the "amen" to prayers for months... MONTHS now! We're willing to bend some on some topics, but we're not willing to let him screw around with prayer time.

He's also quite mean to me - kicking, hitting, trying to bite (I quickly put his hand in his mouth when he tries that - doesn't like that much). If he thinks that Daddy can't see him and/or won't respond, he tries to get away with murder. This has been his M.O. from the beginning, which floors me since I'm the one with whom he spends most of his time and am not slow to discipline him, either. Geof and I take the same stance with rules and response (positive or negative) - but he only takes Geof seriously.

He found out on Sunday at church (my first time alone with the two kids) that I'm not going to put up with it. He threw his church books - one on the floor, one over the pew to the floor in front of him. So he was swept up, taken out of church, got a stern talking to and a good swat on the butt, and came right back in. I'm not one to take kids out of church ever - this is the first time in almost 22 months I've taken him out. He will not be given the chance to associate "I act up = I get to leave" - because leaving is not a happy occurance. After we came back in, he was a lot better. Hopefully things will stay that way, but I'm not afraid to repeat last week if I have to. I just wish I wasn't going it alone in the pew.