Tuff Love

(edited to say - I did not write that in .00534 size font. Hopefully this fixes it. Because you should read this. It's good stuff.)

So our little Tuffy got caught red-handed.

Colin is a wee bit rough with the two babies that are in daycare with him. They are in the sturdy baby phase, and over a year old, but still, smaller than him. He likes to pull on them and oh, try to squash them often.

We do our best to tell Colin to be soft and quit kicking the shit out of your friends to keep his hands to himself, but dude. He's 2.75, large, and loves to be a rascal. And he's damn fast too. He has the strike and run technique down pat.

Donna does a good job intervening, and she recognizes that he's not trying to hurt them. He's trying to HUUUGGG them, and LOOOVVEEE them, and he doesn't CAAAARREE that they don't want to reciprocate.

Yesterday when Donna went to wash her hands, Colin decided to show his affection to the little girl by putting her into a choke hold. Unbeknownst to him, the girl's father happened to be dropping by and watched the whole thing through the window. And he promptly lost his shit. Hey, I don't blame him. If I saw some kid choking my kid, I'd react strongly too.

Donna did her best to explain Colin's predilections for a rough show of affection, and that we're consistently trying to break him of the habit. Hopefully it's not going to escalate. I'm having visions of Colin being sent to the Little Tots Reform Funhouse before he hits kindergarten.

Funny enough (not ha-ha funny, but the funny that makes me draw parallels between my son and bully-ish kids) Colin hates it when other kids pick on him. Apparantly an 18-month old girl that Donna was watching for a few days brought him to tears many times because she was trying to "love" him.