Towel Anyone?

What does how you end the year say about what the new year will bring?

I started my morning with the onset of a migraine. A few hours extra sleep solved that. I was woken by a mostly naked baby wanting a hug. Good second start to the day I thought and then it went downhill. It is barely past 3:30 and I've lost count how many Time Outs we've had today. The first was when Little Man decided to throw his boots at me rather than hand them to me.

I've been told "No" and "Stop It!" so many times I am beginning to think they are the only words left in the English language.

I've been bitten hard enough to leave an ugly mark.

I've had blocks thrown at me. And not the soft ones.

I've been smacked.

I've been ignored and defied all day.

I've watched my sweet little boy turn into Damien.

And I've tried really hard not to return him whence he came.

I'm trying really hard not to call my husband and demand he come home this instance. He is out with the boys for a few hours and it is very hard for me to wait until he returns before striking up a conversation with Brother Jack.

If ever there was a day I felt like a complete and utter failure as a parent, like an idiot for doing this, today is that day. So where is my mulligan?

Uh Oh

By the way - it's official and it is all my fault.

We were driving in the car the other day and Little Man is singing in the back seat. He switched from an upbeat self-involving song to his "Aw man" song with a new refrain:

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck....."

Not too big of a Big Boy

Only my son. Nah - only my husband's son. Yeah, that's better.

We converted Little Man's crib to a toddler bed this morning. It didn't start out as a "we" but it did turn into a "we" to include Little Man supervising our every move. He has the arm waves, sighs and eye rolls down perfectly.

He loved it. While I rearranged the rest of his room (bye bye changing table too. It was storing dust and other items we hadn't used in ages), he sat on his bed and read. We did a good job of making a big deal about his new big boy bed so I thought nap time would go smoothly. Not quite what I planned but not bad either. No luck after a snuggle so I left him and closed the door. The screams ended in less than 2 minutes. I was pleased to see an hour later that he actually fell asleep in his bed and not by the door.

I left the door cracked after checking with him. I wanted to see if he would realize he could open the door and walk out on his own. So imagine my surprise when he called to me and it wasn't just to open the door but to get him out of his bed. Um, sweetie, didn't you crawl into bed yourself?

Dup.

So why don't you climb out yourself?

Why do that when you can just scream for mommy?

So my dreams of him waking in the middle of the night and coming to me rather than the other way around may be just that.

Watch not only what you say but how you say

I try to watch what I say in front of Little Man but I must admit, I have failed miserably. There have been a few occasions we think he may have dropped the F bomb but we aren't sure. If he has, I have no one to blame but myself.

So while I struggle to clean up my own language I forgot to watch how I say things.

"Ah-ite"
"C'meeha"
"Shoo-ah"

And of course we can't forget my favorite which requires a bit of a set up - I call Little Man Baby Boy a lot which of course has been shortened to just Baby. Bad move as he greeted me Christmas morning with a "hey Baby".

Soon I'll be sending Little Man to pre-school with a Bostonian to English dictionary for his teachers. And that's just my influence. Wait until Dad's Jersey comes out!

Traditions 2

Tonight we have another tradition to add to the list. One I wasn't expecting for at least a year while wishing for longer. The joy of putting a present together after Little Man goes to bed. Please let the cursing be kept to a minimum. At least we will be in the basement. Less chance of waking him.

My sister bought Little Man a plasma car.

I bought her kids socks.

Traditions

Now that Little Man is a tad older and can appreciate Christmas a bit more (even though he is clueless what is going to happen in 2 days), my husband and I decided it was time to add to the traditions. Up until now our traditions consisted of It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve and Black Velvets Christmas morning.

This year we will add reading The Night Before Christmas and Frosty the Snowman. We did a trial run with both. Frosty fared better but it still wasn't a hit. The experts do say you need to keep "offering" it up before your child will take to it. So we will continue to offer it up, year after year, and maybe by the time he goes to college, he will appreciate it.

Cranberry muffins for breakfast was the norm growing up. I made my first batch ever for Thanksgiving. No one coughed into a napkin. None ended up conspicuously in the trash and no one got sick so they will be on the menu for breakfast Christmas morning. If I feel like it, so will bacon and eggs. Please keep in mind, there are 3 of us and only 3 of us. No family near by. No one traveling in so we get off easy yet again. There is no turkey defrosting in my fridge, no potatoes waiting to be peeled, no squash souffle waiting to be devoured. Oh wait... that's easy and like a desert to me. Hmmm. OK. Maybe the souffle for dinner.

Tomorrow I will also attempt my father's cranberry bread for the first time. His occupation was elevator mechanic. His favorite hobby, his passion was bread. I didn't grow up with Wonder bread. I grew up with Applesauce Whole Wheat Bread. French toast in my house was made with French bread. Sourdough pretzels. Bannock. Apricot bread. Cherry Rose Rolls. Moravian Love Feast Buns. Cranberry bread and the ultimate sinful treat - Chocolate bread. The last 3 were my favorites. The Cranberry bread is the easiest of the 3. If I am successful, I will contemplate on of the other two. I fear not being able to do him justice.

I am giddy about Christmas. I love my son's excitement every morning as we go downstairs and he claps and jumps in my arms for the tree to be turned on and the same reaction when we get home at night. I love how he says good-bye to the tree each night multiple times as he heads upstairs to bed. I love his excitement when I turn on the lights for the village as he points out the horses, the kids, the tree.

I can't wait to see his excitement on Christmas morning. I was the overexcited child jumping on daddy's chest asking him if he was awake while prying his eyes open. Now I have the opportunity to watch my son experience what I did, I hope. We know he has the prying eyelid move down pat.

Experiencing Christmas through a child's eye brings back such wonderful memories for me which can also be very painful. Christmas is my favorite holiday. It is also my hardest. It is the time of year I miss my dad the most. But my husband and son will get me through it. My husband will give me a huge hug. When that stops working, he'll feed me another Black Velvet. My son, well he'll be a kid and how can that not bring a smile to your face?

Yes, I am sad but I am giddy to. I can't wait to see my son's face, his reaction. I hope I am able to make it as wonderful as my parents made it for me. Dad set the bar pretty high. Good thing I married a man taller than me.

Narcissism x2

All the books and experts claim that babies love mirrors. So I got him a mirror early on. My son was a little late discovering the cute playmate in the mirror but man he is still making up for lost time.

Let him see a camera. He will freeze and say "CHEESE". You need a professional camera because he doesn't complete "cheese" before he is running to see himself. Pull out the video and he expects you to turn the display so he can see himself being recorded.

He points to the computer demanding to see himself (I finally got him to say his name and am now regretting it as he is in the 3rd person stage. My not quite 2 year old is being immersed in English Grammar and being taught the difference between 1st person, 2nd, etc. Basically, I am trying to teach him "I"). The computer comes out and I have to set up the Little Man slide show. He will tolerate a few non-Little Man photos inserted but very few.

He is turning into a lovely narcissist and has decided it is such a lovely way to live one's life, it must be shared. I was attempting to take non-Little Man pictures the other day while he was present. Silly Mommy. Still going after your efforts in futility.

I snap 3 of him and then have to cycle through the 3 pictures 10 times. He won't stop. I decide more pictures will distract him long enough for me to think of something else so I can safely put the camera away.

I ask if he'd like his picture taken with puppy (big puppy, not little puppy. Damn I need to come up with names. He sure as hell isn't). I snap a couple and he is running to see. This time he is dragging puppy with him. As he looks, he points to himself and then gets all excited.

"PUPPY!"

Yes dear. That's puppy.

"PUPPY! PUPPY!"

He wasn't talking to me. He was talking to puppy. He shoves puppy's face up to the camera so he can see himself. He then has puppy kiss his own image on the camera.

I didn't realize Narcissism was capable of loving company.

Rice Chex

I had to stay home with Little Mr. Contagious again today. The morning wasn't bad. He was content. The afternoon more than tested my patience. The Motrin wore off. He was hungry but because the damn blister on his tongue, he doesn't want to eat a lot. Basically I turned into my mother. "Don't whine. Stop whining. You can tell me what you want without whining. AAARRRRGGGH!". What did my friend call it? Ah yes, the mother's curse. My mom definitely cursed me. Her biggest pet peeve was the one thing I excelled at and now she has her payback.

But who wants to dwell on the negative? I prefer to remember the morning and all its glory. I had a very happy if not healthy child. He was content to play by himself for a good 5 minutes, would call out for some attention and then go back to playing by himself so I took advantage and started to clean. I managed to clean the first floor and most of the upstairs. The basement is such a cluster I laugh at the thought of attempting such a feat.

Little Man now loves the vacuum. He will help me for one or two pushes and then spend the rest of the time letting the vacuum chase him around. I get a clean rug. He gets a ton of laughs.

I put the vacuum away and moved onto the half bath. It takes about 3 minutes to clean. Just how much trouble can a toddler get into in 3 minutes? Oh yeah baby! That sound on the edge of my hearing set my alarms on high this time but alas, no crayons on a surface other than paper. Just a harmless box of Rice Chex.

'Oh sure baby, you can eat those".

10 seconds later my alarm is screaming yet again. He is taking the Chex out of the bag in putting them on the rug rather than in his mouth. A lecture regarding the appropriate handling of food and one bowl later I am back to wrapping up the bathroom.

Alarms SCREAMING.

Little Man normally places Cheerios one at a time from the bag into the bowl. It is what I expected with the Chex. Nope. Not this time Mama. I want to try something different. I want to try pouring the Chex into my bowl. One full size bag of Chex being poured by the less-than-skilled hands of a toddler into a toddler bowl.

I know have a mound of Chex and the crumbs from the bottom of the bag piled on my rug.

Did I mention that this was the rug I just vacuumed?

Can someone please tell me when the hell I will learn?

Jameson and Common Sense

Little Man was more interested in playing with his dinner than eating. Considering he has Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, it really wasn't a surprise but damn it, I purposely made plain macaroni for the kid. The least you could do is take one bite!

He is getting more and more rambunctious with his play. I try to calm him down and get him to take one bite for me. He accidentally knocks macaroni on his chair. Instead of picking up the pieces and putting them on the table, he sweeps them onto the floor.

Oh hell no kid.

Now every parent I know that uses time outs as a disciplining tactic has told me that just the threat of a timeout works with their kids. They all told me to hang strong and in no time he would respect the time out.

Could you please define "in no time" for me? We've been doing time outs for quite some time now, and I define quite some time as several months. So when Little Man swept the macaroni onto the floor, I took a deep breath, got his attention and asked if he wanted a time out.

Lil Imp says yes, holds his hands out for me to help him out of his chair, walks over to the time out chair, sits his but down and stays there for the 2 minutes.

For the record, when your son starts calling your bluff before he is two, there are no words to describe how incredibly beyond screwed you are. Put it this way, the Super Nanny would laugh her ass of while watching your tape and then tape a reply back to you "Thanks but no thanks. I don't take on the impossible. Not good for ratings. I suggest buying stock in Jameson and I don't mean the stock sold on Wall Street".

Now to digress for a second. I had to google Hand, Foot, and Mouth. I knew it to be real (more than most people. Almost everyone I've told has laughed at me thinking I made it up) but I didn't know much about it. The name came about because it causes sores on the hand, feet, and in the mouth. Well damn, the medical field finally did away with all that Latin shit and went down the Road of Common Sense.

Oh and how they traveled the Road of Common Sense. You see, the sores can also be found on the buttocks but they conveniently left that out of the name so technically it should be Hand, Foot, Mouth and Ass disease. Guess which one I am going with...

A Mother's Dream Moment

A mother's dream moment: her son asking her to dance.

So what if he's got the moves of rodeo cowboy (literally) and he's dancing to a cow MOOING We Wish You a Merry Christmas...

A Lesson in Karma

Tis the season which means on top of the regular day-to-day schedule one must keep up with it is time to add to the mix shopping for presents and Holiday parties. Oh yippee.

Some parties are kid friendly so the whole family goes. Those parties which are not, well we have to decide who goes and who stays with Little Man. This usually comes down to a rousing round of Rocks, Paper, Scissors. Yes in our family life altering decisions are arrived at after a round or two of Rocks, Papers, Scissors. Considering I rule at Rocks, Papers, Scissors I am not looking to alter this arrangement.

Saturday involved 3 parties. One kid friendly, one not exactly kid friendly but we made it kid friendly for a short period, and one that was anything BUT kid friendly. Thanks to my amazing skills at RPS, we went to the first party as a family, the second we went as a family but husband and kid were only there to drop mama off, make an appearance and then SEE YA! Mama is off the clock!

I hang out at the second party for a bit and then move onto the 3rd which was a Birthday Party. A friend was celebrating the big 50 and it was at a bar. Actually if you knew our friends, that explanation wouldn't have been needed as to why it wasn't kid friendly. This friend is technically my husband's friend. I met him through my husband. Logic would dictate that my husband would go to this party but I cheated. So I got to go and he got to hang at home with the munchkin.

I didn't role in until 3:30 AM. It was wonderful. A night out with friends I haven't seen in ages. I loved it.

But since I cheated, Karma did pay me a visit. My darling husband did not remember everything when he left so I had to make sure I grabbed everything when I left party number 2 and headed to the bar for party #3.

I walked into a bar on a Saturday night carrying a diaper bag.

Thankfully I am not the pink frilly obviously a diaper bag type of a woman but in my mind it was still screaming DIAPER BAG when I walked into the bar and when I took the metro home at 2 AM. Humbled I am.

Consolation Prize

I half-assed attempted to get Little Man to clean up as he finished playing with a toy before moving onto the next one. It didn't work unless the expected results were a wrestling/tickling match.

Little Man ends up out of breath but still giggling away as he says no so I upped the ante. I took his puppy (not THE puppy, the big oversized super huggable puppy) and claimed it as mine.

I thought he would put his toy away in order to get his toy back.

Never underestimate the genius that is the Kelley/Lyons genes.

Little imp ran up, swiped my blackberry and proceeded to run all over the house yelling MINE at the top of his lungs.

I was reduced to cajoling, begging, pleading, and bribing to get it back. I didn't succeed until he became bored with the game.

Mama: 0
Child: 1

'scuse me while I content myself with my consolation prize - 1 Sam Adams down the hatch.

Time Out

The last several nights' pre-bedtime routine has been interesting to say the least. Little Man is required to clean up his toys before heading upstairs. He's been a tad defiant which has resulted in a time out. He sits in his chair facing the wall crying while I ignore the "maaaamaaaa" cries for the duration.

Tonight seemed to be headed in the same direction. I told Little Man to clean up. He ignored me and chose to hide behind the couch. He cleaned up one thing and went back to ignoring me. I counted to 5 and then asked if he wanted a time out.

Little Man not only said yes but he got up, walked into the dining room and put himself in the chair!

Excuse me? It took everything in me not to bust out but instead, I told him no playing and to sit (he was playing with the cabinet handle) which he did. Little imp sat in the chair and folded his hands.

Again - Excuse me? Seriously?

So after 2 seconds I asked if he was ready to clean up. With a "dup" he jumps up and runs, yes he ran to clean up.

As I walked by the kitchen, I ducked in and whispered to my husband:

"Honey, we have one weeeird kid".

Breakfast

What would you like for breakfast?

s'up.

Soup?

s'up (tugs at fridge).

I open fridge door.

He points. s'up.

Syrup. For breakfast?

Dup. s'up.

Syrup with what?

s'up.

Just syrup?

Dup. s'up. in bow.

Nice try kid.