Posted in Daily Life, tagged childhood, Kids, motherhood, parenting on October 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The Boo is so my child:
“Mama, I want the beginning of Purple Rain again.”
The Boo is so his daddy’s child:
“I don’t like the squares on my sheet.”
The Boo is so his own person:
“Where’s the accelerator light, Mama?”
The Boo also recently protested a request to not pick his nose, arguing strenuously that he wanted the boogers in his mouth. (“It’s not gross!”)
But perhaps that just makes him a child of the universe.
Posted in Daily Life, tagged humor, motherhood, parenting, toddlers on October 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The Boo was up from 3:30 to 5:30 this morning. Here are some of the “reasons” why.
There was a noise. (Plausible.)
He wanted to cuddle with Mama. (Aw… But maybe not the best idea given the next one.)
He wanted to try sleeping in Mama’s bed. (Um, no. Mama needs to sleep.)
His tummy was not feeling well. (Plausible again given the cold he’s getting over. I kissed it, which made it better.)
He bumped his head. (On the toy plane he insists on taking to bed.)
He bumped his toe. (On the toy plane I moved to the floor.)
He cried, and then asked why he cried, and then stopped crying and asked why he wasn’t crying. (I just…)
He asked what would happen if he got out of bed again. (I had no words at this point.)
In the end, I rocked him in the glider where I used to nurse him. It still took two more tries to get him sleeping. The last time I was in the room, he announced the funniest issue by far:
There was a problem with the blanket. (Yeah, you kicked it off and you’re too out of your mind with exhaustion to put it back on yourself.)
Posted in Daily Life, tagged childhood, motherhood, parenting, toddlers on October 16, 2014| 1 Comment »
You have been taking this to bed:
Not only that, but as you were settling down for today’s nap you very sweetly told it, “It’s okay plane, I’m right here.”
You have begun asking “why” about pretty much everything, all day long. Why are those birds flying? Why is it raining? Why is it not raining? Why is it daytime? Why do I have hiccups?
You like to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” at nap time and bedtime. It’s more like a chant than singing, though — the rhythm is dead on, the melody is iffy at best, the combined effect puts a grin on your face as well as Mama’s.
You were class leader at school, which means you got to share your favorite book and put the clothes on the weather frog. Your teacher said you did a great job.
You like to ask, “What are you doing Mama?” even when you can clearly see what she is doing. Mama likes to give bogus answers just to see your reaction.
You told someone your name is Bubbles. To be fair, that’s one of Daddy’s nicknames for you.
You needed a few viewings of this video to figure out why Mama and Daddy think it’s so funny. Or at least to laugh along with us.
You adore one of your teachers so much that you went through a phase of crying whenever she had to leave the classroom. So we had a few talks about how she always comes back — just like Mama always comes back.
You helped Mama build a marble track out of a Cheerios box and toilet paper tubes. It’s already feeling its age, which prompted you to declare that we need to build a new one. Mama’s on the hunt for a more durable model.
You had your second dental checkup recently and did really well, even when the dentist decided to scrape at your teeth a little bit. Next time we take you, you’ll go back without us. You don’t know that yet.
You give Mama a blank look whenever she tries to talk to you about Halloween.
You are now closer to three than two, and sometimes you still ask Mama to pick you up like a baby. She’s happy to oblige.
Posted in Daily Life, Entertainment, tagged humor, Kids, motherhood, parenting on October 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Even if you don’t actually sit down to watch kiddie shows with your kid, you will be within earshot of a considerable amount of treacly kiddietainment. After six long months of exposure, I’ve come up with the best way to cope with the despair that inevitably arises on hearing the Ice Skating episode of Caillou for the umpteenth time: Figure out what drugs the main characters are on.
Taking Caillou as an example, the mom is clearly on Valium. No other way she could remain that cheery throughout days of thoughtfully disciplining her four-year-old while wrangling a toddler. Dad is tripping — how else to explain his ability to flip between Zen and zaniness?
Over on the island of Sodor, Thomas and his friends are partaking of something that makes them simpleminded in the extreme. I’m going with weed. And Sir Topham Hatt? Clearly a raving drunk — why else would he talk to steam engines — and believe that they talk back to him?
And finally, Super Why. Collective hallucinations among friends who believe themselves to have super powers, including the ability to enter books and talk to the main characters they find therein. Three words: group Peyote trip.
Posted in Daily Life, mama life hacks, tagged humor, motherhood, toddlers on October 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »
“If you get scared, you can come sleep with Mama.” (Important note: The Boo’s pronouns are still reversed. This is him telling himself he can come sleep with me whenever the fickle toddler spirit moves him.)
It was the night after I’d allowed the Boo to crawl into bed with me at 4 in the morning because he was sick and I just didn’t feel like getting up to tuck him back in. Now he was overtired, weepy and anxious, and I was regretting my slothful decision. I didn’t want to deny him the choice to come find me when he’s scared, but neither did I want him developing a musical beds habit. I knew it was time for a sales job.
Nobody talks about that when you have a baby, but they should. You are going to need to be a damn good salesperson at least some of the time, because saying “no” gets old — and tends to infuriate tired toddlers.
“Well,” I said above the crying, “Let’s go cuddle in your chair and talk about it.” I got him as close to horizontal as he could get in my lap in the glider we’ve almost outgrown. He was still crying as I began talking about how nice and cozy his room was and how much I like it.
“You have your elephant lamp up here, and your hot air balloons, and your airplanes. You have all your animal friends in your bed, and green dot blanket, and you have your ladybug. They’re all so nice. Your room is such a cozy place for a little boy to sleep.”
He calmed down enough that I felt he could handle being put back to bed. I had to sing him almost all the way to sleep, but he did fall asleep in his own bed. Maybe it was the last thing I told him that did the trick.
“Also, Mama snores. Really loud. You wouldn’t be able to rest at all.”
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