Trick or Treat

I wanted to dress him as a Garden Gnome. He was quite emphatically against it. I went with the giraffe. I should have gone with the Energizer bunny. He kept going and going. He was so tired he began to have trouble navigating stairs but he wouldn't give up. He has an intense fear of dogs but that didn't stop him. Did I mention this kid doesn't eat candy?

I kept asking him if he was done which drew some shocked comments from one person who thought I was nuts as according to her, you trick or treat until you drop. I had to explain to her that he was dropping... himself... candy... but he kept going.

As we were leaving one house he told me he had to much. The gentleman at the door almost fell over. "Too much? I've never heard a kid say that before. There's no such thing." No, no, no - too much in his pumpkin and I showed him the overflowing pocket of my hoodie. Apparently I need to buy him a bigger pumpkin next year or just give him a pillowcase.

Then there was the whole Trick or Treat and Thank You thing. After he was given the candy and was turning to walk away he would say "Thank you. Trick or Treat. Happy Halloween."

I finally managed to convince him it was time to head home. I made the mistake of telling him he could help daddy hand out candy. "Nooo Mommy. It's my candy." I actually spent the entire walk home trying to explain it to him. It wasn't sinking in. The second we get to the house and he sees the cauldron full of candy - he got it.

Yeah. I'm brilliant.

So he stood outside way past his bedtime and for the majority of the time, in his costume, handing out candy. He would cock his head to one side and oh so sweetly ask the older kids if they wanted some candy. Unless they were wearing a scary mask. Then he would put his hand up signalling stop and scamper behind me. Gotta love these kids - all but one took their masks off for him.

So now I have an overflowing pumpkin full of sugar and chocolate with a child who doesn't eat any of it.

Mmm hmmm.... sure I took him Trick or Treating so he could have the experience and the fun and the joy and ....

An Ugly Lesson to Learn

It is wonderful that children are such sponges.

It is not so wonderful that they are exceptional mimics.

I learned to control my language. Most of the time. I learned that swapping out the F bomb with OH CRAP wasn't quite good enough. I learned I say the word "stupid" quite a lot in reference to myself and that swapping it out with silly is acceptable because I also changed my tone and stopped being so hard on myself.

My sister taught me the trick of walking out of the room mid-tantrum and forcing a smile until it became natural. Once I was calm, I could calm my banshee.

I think before I speak much more now although I will always have work to do in that arena as I have a faulty filter. The Off button seems to be out of order a lot.

I preened at the transformation and patted myself on the back when I saw the positive effect it had on Little Man. Ah the sense of Pride.

Oh the fall.

Enter the Mimic Stage. Damn thing really needed to come with a parental warning: Warning to all parents. You are about to have all your faults and bad habits thrown full force in your face by your precious perfect little angel.

Little Man is slowly learning that whining and crying will not make Mommy or Daddy have a change of heart when he's told no. So he deals with it like an adult, more specifically like his adult mommy.

Cue huge sigh followed by "oh fine".

That's when he not over tired and has a somewhat calm demeanor. When he is lacking sleep and in anything but a calm demeanor he bypasses the sigh all together and shouts "FINE" quite succinctly.

I think I could have gone several more years before I had to have my own reaction played out to me when I don't get my way. It is not a pretty site and it kind of punctures the ego a bit.

Dialects

When you hail from Boston and your husband hails from South Jersey you cannot help but have this gnawing fear in the back of your head. What the hell kind of accent will my child end up with? A cross between James Gandolfino and Donnie Wahlberg? Chris Christie and Tip O'Neill? Sweet mother he'll be mistaken for Chelsea Handler and Steven Wright's love child on voice alone.

Would you like a lemon with your wooder/wahtah becomes woodah. Right? Apparently not. It is still water.

Blueberry on the other hand? Um... try bluebrerry (try saying that 3 times fast). Frog? Flog.

My husband twists his r's. I drop them all together (or add them where they don't belong) but our son? Oh no he has to one up us and replace them with an L.

I understood when he messed up the title to one of his book. "A Crack in the Track" became "A Track in the Crack" (I'll never look at plumbers the same).  I even understood when he informed me that turtles, fish, dolphins, etc. lived in the lotion (half expected him to empty all my lotion bottles in search of said turtles, fish, dolphins, etc.).

But bluebrerry? I don't have a clue where that came from. I'm waiting for him to spit out bruebrelly one of these days. I could barely type that. I hope he doesn't expect me to pronounce it.

Reaction?

Several hours later and I'm still not sure how to react to this.

John came home from work tonight. He was sitting in the living room with Little Man when Little Man turned to him and asked "Daddy, you want beer?"

What?

"Beer. You want beer daddy?"

What man isn't going to answer in the affirmative?

How many 2 year olds would react by walking to the fridge, grabbing a beer and bringing it to their father?

Response alludes me still.

Hold On

Little Man did not clear his plate from the dinner table tonight. He went straight to the living room to play so I called him back.

"Hold on Mommy" was the response I got not once, not twice but 3 times.

How do you respond to your child who is mimicking exactly what you say to him?

How do you explain the "Do as I say not as I do" concept to a toddler?

How do you not laugh in these situations?

After the 3rd time I channeled my mom. "No. NOW. Please."

He listened. Finally.

He did not listen 20 minutes later when we told him to clean up his toys before going to bed. So he went to bed with no bedtime story.

I'm finally learning that his choices have consequences.

Mini Me

"Stay there Mommy."

"No lie down."

"LIE DOWN."

Excuse me?

"peas?"

"No stay there. Don't move Mommy."

He walks away and returns a few seconds later.

"OK Mommy. Get up. Come with me mommy."

He takes me by the hand and leads me to the living room.

"Good job Mommy. You did good. You get TWO stickers mommy. Thomas and Percy. Good job"

And proceeds to place two imaginary stickers on my shirt.

Fransisco took great joy in pointing out that he sounded exactly like me.

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Bedtime and I tell Little Man it is time to head upstairs. I head to the stairs and he runs to get in front of me.

"No Mommy. You stay here. Right here. Don't move."

Then he runs behind me to John with his hand up.

"And you stay right here. Don't move."

He spends several minutes running between the two of us telling each not to move and that we must stay right there.

"You no go upstairs. You stay right here."

Well I have to go put the trash and recycling out.

"OK Daddy. You can come upstairs. Mommy you no come. You stay right there. Don't move. Understand?"

My body is starting to imitate jello. Watch it wiggle. See it jiggle....

Little Man hands John his cup and plate to carry upstairs for him. He turns one last time and wiggles his finger at me.

"You stay right there. Don't move Mommy. You no come upstairs."

Little Man scrambles up after Daddy and I hear him tell his father that mommy isn't coming. She's staying downstairs. John states he would like Mommy to come upstairs to which Little Man replies: "No. She has to stay downstairs."

I walk to the bottom of the stairs and ask Little Man if I can come upstairs.

"NO Mommy. YOU stay downstairs."

OK buddy. Guess you don't want mommy to stay with you when you go to bed. Guess you are going to put yourself to bed.

He reaches his hands through the gate.

"Come touch my hands Mommy."

I climb the stairs and we give each other a high five.

He proceeds to tilt his head to one side and ask: "You come in? You come upstairs with me?"

Managed to eek out another one for the win column.

Seriously Dude?

I'm not liking the current phase - the repeat everything mommy says in exactly the same tone.

Unless of course John just said something insanely silly and my response is "Seriously, dude?"

Sometimes its good to have an echo.

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He's back to sleeping in our bed. I can't tell you when I screwed up. We were doing really well there when we came back from vacation. He would go to bed and stay there until morning. Somewhere along the line that stopped and I messed up royally. He woke up one night and came into our room. Instead of walking him back into his room, I pulled him into bed.

I don't remember doing it but he was lying next to me the next morning. My excuse is the rational part of my brain nudged my sleeping brain with a reminder how uncomfortable his floor is to sleep on. Not very rationale but we are talking about me.

Redhead. Goddess. My Universe. You are all nothing but peons here to amuse me.

Yeah, Karma's having a blast with me.

It is nice to wake up to a little face all scrunched up in a huge grin waiting for you to open your eyes so he can give you a kiss and hug.

Its even nicer when he grabs his dad's face with one hand so he can point his finger in his dad's face and state very seriously "Mommy's sleeping. No waking her up."

Now to get him to follow his own threats.

Pushing Buttons

Little Man has discovered the joys of sitting in the driver's seat of the car. He gets to push buttons, flip switches and move the steering wheel back and forth. He also has to deal with the occasional "We don't touch that!" as he moves toward the shift or parking break.

Today as I adjusted his car seat, he climbed into the front seat and pretended to drive the car. Apparently he's a tad bored with the game already and needed to add a little excitement.

"Mommy I need the car keys. Mommy I drive car. I need car keys."

If this is what he asks for before he's 3. What will he be asking for at 16?

The Good. The Bad. The Downright Scarring.

It is Sunday which means FOOTBALL! The Pats have the Monday night game this week so I have to settle for the Redskins game today. Since they are not in the same league as the Pats (yes that was intentional) I can root for them right up until the day they meet the Pats in the Super Bowl at which point the gloves come off and my darling husband and I fight over who has to move into the guest bedroom. That day is not here yet so we continue to yell and scream at the TV, willing the Skins to take Vick out (which they just did) and give McNabb a glorious return to the City of Brotherly Love (the gesture I have in mind is neither brotherly nor loving).

The first touchdown had Little Man mimicking his daddy perfectly: "Come on baby! Go baby, go! YEAH TOUCHDOWN!"

Little Man does a lovely impersonation of the Heisman Trophy. Unfortunately he then yells "SPIDERMAN" and bolts so when  the 2nd touchdown occured, John decided to teach him how to spike the ball. Actually John told him to spike it. I was the brilliant parent that showed him how. We'll see what Karma has in store for me on that one.

There is nothing better than Sunday football with a 2/5 year-old aper. Right now I choose to live in the moment enjoying his antics hoping they will eventually erase yesterday from my brain cells.

Before I get to that - Redskins kicking off and the ball falls off the.... the.... the.... I've been watching this game for how many years? One of my many nicknames is? I'm freaking brilliant.

OK so back to yesterday. Thankfully I did not actually witness this event though even just hearing about is enough to scar me for life.

Have you seen the carpet cleaner add? The one where the child calls for mommy to witness Spot's new trick? The new trick which consists of Spot dragging his but across the carpet?

Swap the carpet for not just my bed but my side of the bed.

Little Man called and called to daddy yesterday but we thought he was procrastinating taking his nap. After while John decided to check. While not exactly great timing on his part, it could have been much worse.

"Daddy I poopy".

Half the pullup was pulled off. Most was still in the pullup. What wasn't was on my side of the bed. At least he didn't do this when I had the white sheets on the bed.

And at least he didn't decide to finger paint.

At least I keep telling myself at least. I have to remind myself that while gross, it could be so much grosser; however, that is one theory I have no desire to test so we will leave it right there.

Conversations

Mommy we go downstairs?

In a sec baby. Mama has to put her makeup on.

I put makeup on too Mommy.

Um. Um. Oh! You have lip balm. It's called lip balm. It's in your bathroom baby. Go get it.

OK Mommy.
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Can you make Mommy coffee while Mommy does her makeup?

Mmmm. No. No coffee. I do your makeup?

Ummm.... why don't you go make mommy some coffee.

OK Mommy.
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Bye Mommy.

Hey, where's my hug and kiss?

No hug and kiss mommy. You gotta do your makeup and I gotta get outta here.
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Pick a book to read buddy.

Dis one mommy. NO Mommy. I read to you. Sit. Sit down on floor. I read to you.

He scrambles up into the glider and proceeds to read the book (he has it memorized) and then add to the story line using the pictures. Any question I ask during story time (how many ladybugs do you see; what color is this), he proceeded to ask me.

You'll all be happy to hear I earned a "Good Yob Mommy! Gimme a high five!"