Funny Gabe Stuff

Gabe needs a haircut right now, which has reminded me of the last time I gave him a haircut.  Now, if you know much about Gabe's haircut history, you might remember that every time we've tried to cut his hair for the past year (at least) he has thrown a royal fit-  the worst he can do, with crying, screaming, thrashing, scratching himself in the face, begging, turning red, etc.  No bribes would work- no treats, no movies, no toys, no promises of any kind.  He would hold still long enough for me to cut a huge chunk of hair off, then throw his fit, so there was no going back, and BJ would have to hold him while I quickly buzzed his head.  Sad for all of us.  He was scared of the scissors, scared of the buzzer, and he absolutely hated having the hair fall on him, which made him itchy.
So, back to the story... last time I had to cut his hair, I had an idea.  It was 7pm, close to Gabe's bed time.  I said, "Gabe, do you want to go to bed now? Or do you want a haircut?"  Gabe looked at me, puzzled, and very slowly, said "Uh.... haircut?" I thought maybe it was just him talking to get out of going to bed, but I went ahead and got all the stuff out, and told him that we would blow all the itchy hair off, and I would let him take a bath right after, and he could call Grandpa C on the phone afterwards (Grandpa had just called while we were talking about this, so I thought it might be good motivation for Gabe to follow up with him and be able to tell him he was a big boy and got a haircut).  So, I let Gabe stand up on the stool in front of the bathroom sink, and had him lean his head over so most of the hair would fall in the sink and not on him, and we talked about what a big boy he was, and he actually let me cut his hair with scissors!  Any time some hair got on him, I made a big deal of brushing it off and saying "Get that itchy hair off!  Go away itchy hair!  Bye bye!"  He didn't scream or cry once.  He was very cooperative, and so proud of himself once he was done.  He even let me touch his hair up around his ears the next day.  It just cracks me up that he was motivated enough to stay up later that he let me cut his hair.  I'm going to try it again this week.

One more funny story... Gabe is finally to the point where he is doing great at being potty trained.  He still has the occasional accident, because he isn't very good yet of being super aware while he plays etc. but as long as I remind him a few times a day, he stays clean and dry.  He has even stayed dry during nap time recently.  He has earned lots of treats for staying completely clean and dry all day (one treat per day at this point).  A while back while we were working with him on only pooping in the toilet and not in his pull-up, he was sitting on the potty and had just gone.  Tayler and his friend were visiting and were sitting in the front room.  Gabe was very proud of himself and loudly declared "Poop is awesome!" which was followed by snickers from the front room.  Haha.  I think our teaching that poop is nasty in underpants and on the floor, but it's awesome to use the toilet must have sunk in, at least partly.  :P