toxic

This week = currently kicking my ass. For one, we found out that our daycare provider is moving. She’s moving juuuuust far away enough to make it entirely impractical for us to continue taking Evan there. Thus, I’ve been thrown into a tailspin of stress and preschool tour chaos. Good times.

Then, this morning, we went in to get Evan after he had been awake for about 15 minutes. Lately, he’s taken to telling us when he needs his diaper changed (yep, that means he’s getting close to potty training!). He’ll say “need to change diapers” and hold his arms up waiting for you to pick him up and do what needs to be done. For some reason, despite the fact that we knew this, we heard him wake up and just let him hang out for a few while we ate breakfast. Big mistake. By the time we got up there to get him, you could smell the carnage OUTSIDE HIS BEDROOM DOOR. I knew this was a bad sign.

And I was not wrong. He had taken off his pants and sitting in his crib saying pitifully “need to change diapers.” Um, yeah, you think? Fortunately he hadn’t removed his diaper, but let’s just say that nothing was unscathed. There was a containment issue. We had to immediately remove everything from the crib – blankets, pajamas, sheet, mattress pad – and dump it all into the wash.

Not a very good start to the day, but fitting for the week I'm having.

i've got nothin'

I am SO glad it’s Friday. This has been the longest week in history. We are starting swimming lessons with Evan tomorrow and I can’t wait! He enjoyed them last summer, so hopefully he’ll remember how fun it was and not freak out at the sight of a gigantic swimming pool. You never really know though. Then, we’re going to a kid’s birthday party tomorrow afternoon, and on Sunday, we are having my family over for a Father’s Day barbecue bash. Good times.

Such is the excitement of my life right now. Oh, and yesterday, our housekeeper came, which is license enough to order takeout for at least a couple of nights. You know, don’t want to mess up that clean kitchen!

Yeah well. Like I said, I’ve got nothin’. Have a great weekend…

you win some, you lose some

This morning we were back to some flagrant two year-old behavior. We took Evan to Toys-R-Us over the weekend and bought him some new things to play with. He fell in love with a three-pack of mini monster trucks and immediately adopted one of them as his current favorite toy. It’s a neon green monster truck with giant wheels, a skull and the name “Grave Digger” emblazoned on the side (what, doesn’t everyone want their toddler playing with the Grave Digger?). He’s named this vehicle “Aunt Ryann’s Truck.” For the record, there is an Aunt Ryann, but she drives a blue Jeep. And no, it does not have a skull. So we’re not exactly sure where this specific nomenclature came from. Anyway, he gets really upset if Aunt Ryann’s Truck is not within sight. At all times.

So this morning we were happily driving to daycare until he spied Aunt Ryann’s Truck sitting on the seat just out of reach. Since we were only about two minutes from our destination, AND we aren’t allowed to bring toys from home to daycare, I knew that giving him the truck would be a total disaster. Until I parked the car, I heard nothing but “want Aunt Ryann’s Truuuuuuuck!” Then it went from bad to worse. I went to unbuckle his car seat and he grabbed the sides of his car seat and wouldn’t let go. Tears poured out of his eyes. I finally pried his hands free and muscled him out of the car. Man, if physically yanking your kid out of the car doesn’t make you feel like mother of the year, I don’t know what does.

He cried all the way into the house, pleading for the truck. I couldn’t find anything to distract him from his wailing. Finally, I had to give him a big hug and just leave him there so I could go to work.

Two year-olds. Charming? Most of the time. Rational? Not so much.

example

I often think to myself that it’s lucky that toddlers are as charming as they are because the frequent funny or endearing moments put the challenging times in perspective. Something happened this weekend that illustrated that better than I could ever explain.

Yesterday, Evan was in his high chair eating lunch. Dave was sitting at our kitchen island hunched over his laptop and I walked over and put my arms around him from behind. A few seconds later, Evan piped up.

“Want a hug too,” he said in the clearest, sweetest voice.

Dave and I looked at each other, then at Evan. Tears immediately welled up in my eyes when I saw his little face looking over at us. I went over and hugged as much of him as I could grab hold of and kissed his cheek. I stepped back and then heard the voice again.

“Daddy kiss too,” Evan said.

Dave promptly got up and went over to kiss him also. This went on for a few more minutes as he traded off requests: “Mommy kiss too…” “Daddy kiss too…,” clearly happy that we were doing what he asked.

It just made me realize - again - that this little person watches everything we do and hears everything we say. I am far from a perfect mother, but please, God, let me be an example to be proud of.

nice hat

Last night we went to our next-door neighbors’ house to watch the last game of the Stanley Cup finals. They have two little boys and a putting green in their backyard, so Evan is in heaven every time we go over there.

Everything was going great until I walked by the door to the backyard and saw Evan knock over the dog’s water bowl all over his shoes. After I had cleaned that up, I went back in for a few minutes, until I glanced outside again and saw him prancing around the backyard with THE DOG’S WATER BOWL ON HIS HEAD. Yes, he thought the water bowl made a fine hat.

This made me re-think my earlier decision NOT to give him a bath when we got home.

blind date with whoorl

I started this blog a couple of years ago because my sister thought it would be a good way to stay caught up in each other’s lives. Well, she never blogs anymore, and as you know, I’m hit or miss when it comes to posting. I do read other people’s blogs often, and the weird thing is that you feel like you intimately know the people whose words you read on a daily basis.

Last night, Whoorl and I met for drinks at a restaurant in her neighborhood. Although we’d never met in person before, we had exchanged emails and comments so it felt like we already knew each other. We fell into conversation easily and covered the gamut of topics: kids, husbands, childbirth, work, blogging, the ridiculous price of real estate in California and more (and believe it or not, lip gloss DID NOT EVEN COME UP until the very end). I felt as if I had known her a while. Would I have discussed my retained placenta in gory detail with someone I’m meeting for the first time? Probably not. But with her, it seemed normal. And in my defense, I have to say she started it with some graphic detail of her own! I may have even let her in on a secret or two.

I don’t put a lot of effort into maintaining this blog and sometimes feel guilty about that. I also don’t really write on this blog as therapy, maybe because my tone is usually a little more tongue-in-cheek and tends toward sarcasm rather than true emotional openness. But if blogging is a way to not only stay caught up with people you already know, but to meet new friends and find things in common, that is really pretty cool.

So thanks Whoorl, I had a great time and would love to do it again!

p.s. Am quite jealous of your beautiful dark shiny hair.

you know it's a good toddler weekend when...

…you have to leave a store before buying anything because a tantrum has reached epic proportions.

…your child wakes up at 5:15 a.m. two days in a row.

…Sunday afternoon’s nap, which should be two hours, turns out to be only one hour.

…when you take him to the park after much pleading, he becomes extremely upset when the swings are occupied and says loudly and whiningly “MY SWINGS! MY SWINGS!”

...and, to cap it all off, your child pees in the closet.*

Two is awesome.

*I have to confess that I found the peeing in the closet incident to be rather funny. My husband, not so much, because he was on cleanup detail.