A Letter To Xander

Holiday Recap

2012-01-01T19:40:00.001-08:00

We had Christmas.

Then we had Christmas again.

Then we went to the Science Center for New Years.

I’m tired. Is it time to go back to work yet?

Those bears are my kind of people

2011-12-14T19:19:00.001-08:00

I sometimes witness other people’s kids getting asked to do stuff, and then they just do it. This usually makes me a little jealous and frustrated, because that is not how you operate.

Except…sometimes you do. It seems like it goes in cycles, this pushing back and arguing and resisting thing that you do, and this last cycle has been so long that when your father asked you to get dressed this morning and you just did it, afterwards he whispered to me:

“…That is not our kid.”

We had a hard time remembering the last occasion when you just did something, instead of arguing every tiny request, asking unrelated questions to avoid the topic, or ignoring us completely.

Then when I dropped you off at daycare, you thanked me, completely unprompted, for allowing you to put your boots on the boot rack. Your boots aren’t supposed to go on the boot rack, they’re supposed to go in your locker, but you like them to go on the boot rack. And because it is a rack for boots, I often let you. But that is certainly the first time you’ve ever thanked me for it.

I wonder, actually, if it has to do with your media consumption. It does seem as if your behaviour is somewhat influenced by whatever children’s show you’re choosing to watch at the time. I outright banned “Max & Ruby”, for instance. Max is an obnoxious two-year-old bunny who demands things in one-word sentences, and Ruby is an ineffective surrogate parent whose patronizing tone grates on my nerves. When you went through a period where that was all you wanted to watch, you began demanding things in one-word sentences.

(When I placed an embargo on Max & Ruby, I made the mistake of saying I didn’t like them. You demanded to know, “What have they ever done to you?”)

Lately, however, you’re reading and watching a lot of Berenstain Bears. I find them a little syrupy, but I can’t fault their morals or manners. I feel a bit dishonest skipping over the references to the Bible, but, whatever. I take no issue with Christian ethics when they’re in bear form, apparently.

It’s almost enough to make an atheist take their kid to church. Well, maybe bear church.

Now I just need to make that the entirety of your viewing and reading schedule for the next…oh, 12 years.

Just so we’re clear, it is the dog’s fault that I won’t make you large batches of salted play-doh anymore. Also, that you probably won’t be getting anything for Christmas.

2011-12-11T06:35:00.001-08:00

(Fine, you will still get Christmas presents. I just feel compelled to blame as much as possible on that stupid canine.)

Growing pains

2011-12-06T18:04:00.001-08:00

You had a growth spurt recently, which means we went through copious amounts of peanut butter sandwiches, and a couple of sleepless nights due to pains in your legs.

“Here, buddy,” I said on the third night, “Take some Advil so your legs don’t hurt.”

“Okay,” you said. “Mom, why my legs hurt?”

“It just means your legs are growing, bud. It’ll go away soon.”

“But I don’t want them to grow!” you said in dismay.

“You don’t?”

“No! I don’t want to grow big. I will lose these little legs!” you told me earnestly, clutching the legs in question.

I didn’t know quite what to say. Trust me, you won’t miss those little legs as much as I will.

Silence

2011-11-12T08:34:00.001-08:00

I realize that I am not blogging much for you lately. It isn’t that I don’t have anything to say; I think it’s more that I say so much during the course of a day, that after you’ve gone to sleep I just want to sit in silence.

I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean that you are four years old, and a source of constant amusement, and also a source of constant chatter. I answer your questions or help you find the answers as best as I can, but, sometimes it is exhausting. It isn’t a bad thing, it just IS.

I truly realized it this weekend. You and your father are away, with your grandmother, and the silence in the house is deafening. The dog doesn’t ask me if she can watch tv, have a treat, go outside, go downstairs, what’s that thing? Who’s that guy? The laundry doesn’t re-arrange itself after I’ve folded it, and I don’t have to give it warnings about its behaviour or remind it for the umpteenth time to say “please”.

I love it, the constant waves of your voice, watching your mind work with each small interaction, watching you put 2 and 2 together because of an answer I’ve given you. I love the answers you give back, your logic, the suppressed smiles your father and I exchange when you’re being cheeky. I wish I could capture every moment but I can’t, when I’m in it, I can just tread water and be carried along on the waves.

Sometimes it takes silence to lend contrast to how awesome the noise is.

Priorities

2011-10-10T13:57:00.001-07:00

We had your birthday celebration yesterday, and as it does every year, it involved waffles and cake. This year I could actually ask you what kind of cake you wanted, and you told me you wanted a “hairplane” cake.

(We think “hairplane” is cute, so we say it back to you. You could probably pronounce “airplane” correctly by now, except that we’ve been reinforcing the wrong one.)

Well, I tried, sweetie. But I was kind of winging it and it ended up looking suspiciously like the airplane that crashed into the side of the the Himalayas and all the passengers had to eat each other to survive. All crumpled up and covered in questionable-looking debris.

“Cake!” you said when you saw it.

“Yeah. Um, what kind of cake do you think it is?” I said hopefully.

“Chocolate!” you exclaimed with glee.

Ah, children. Reminding us of the important lessons: Who gives a shit what it looks like? IT’S CAKE.

Four

2011-10-05T20:07:00.001-07:00

What Four looks like in the morning:

"Mom, I don't want pants. No pants."

"I don't want that shirt. Nooooo! Light McQueen shirt! No, not that Light McQueen shirt!"

"I don't want breakfast."

"Mom, I watch? One more show?"

What Four looks like on the way out the door:

"I hafta peeeeee!"

"I want the other car."

"I need a plushie!"

"I'm hungrrrreee! I want breakfast!"

"Mom, I frozen. I frozen, I can't move."

"I need to run around the tree!"

"Chase me, Mom! Chase me!"

What Four looks like in the evening:

"Mooom, I'm huuunggrrrrrry. I'm staaaarvvving. I need a snack."

"No, I don't want dinner, I'm not hungry.”

"No bath."

"I go outside?"

What Four looks like at bedtime:

"I'm thirsty."

"I'm hungry."

"I want a bath!"

"Five more minutes, you said five more minutes!"

"Mom, jus' a minute, I'm doin' something."

"Mom, read me a book. Now read it again!"

"We play trains? Do a puzzle? Brush my teeth?"

"I need my other blanket."

"I'm scared."

"I want someone to sleep with me!"

"I sleep in the big bed?"

"I don't wanna sleep in the big bed, I sleep on the couch?"

At this rate, Four will last FOREVER.

And that is just fine with me.

Happy birthday, little man.

Absolutely, positively, 100% maybe.

2011-09-25T14:02:00.001-07:00

We are calling it.

Potty trained.

Yesss.

Just in time for your 4th birthday.

*frantically knocks on wood*

*does rain dance*

*knocks on more wood*

*re-considers even posting this*

Grandpa

2011-09-05T15:43:00.001-07:00

Early in August, your grandfather suffered a massive stroke and passed away.

I’ve been stalling about blogging it, because I don’t really know what to say. I still don’t, but I also don’t feel like I can overlook it, even temporarily.

I explained it to you, of course, as best as I could, where your father’s father – your “Melville Grandpa” – was. You knew why we went to the hospital - because he was there, and he was very sick; you knew that everybody was sad.

“Why is Melville Grandma sad?” you wanted to know.

“Sweetie, Melville Grandma is very sad because Grandpa died. Do you know what that means?”

You shook your head solemnly.

“It means that his body stopped working, and the doctors couldn’t fix it. So he had to go away…and he can’t come back. So Grandma misses him very much.”

“Oh, his body is broken?”

“Um…yes. Sometimes bodies break.”

You thought about this.

“My body won’t break,” you stated.

“No!” I assured you hastily. “No, your body is perfectly healthy, and so are Mommy’s and Daddy’s. Nobody else’s body will break for a very long time.”

“Oh, and Grandpa went away?”

“Yes, he had to go away, and he can’t come back.”

“Where did he go?”

“Um. Well. Nobody really knows, sweetie.”

You waited, unsatisfied with this answer.

“…but I’m sure it’s somewhere good.” I finished lamely.

(There are definitely times that it would be easier to be religious.)

You re-confirm the details with me almost daily, which doesn’t mean that you understand or don’t understand, only that you are 3 (almost 4! Gah!). You ask me the same questions about all kinds of things daily, to confirm that the answers haven’t changed. Or that I’m not lying to you.

I hope that we can tell you enough about your Melville Grandpa that you feel you know him, as you get older. I hope that you will have memories of your own that will stay. He loved you so much – and you brought him such incredible joy. His face lit up with every single thing you did – you were the highlight of his day sometimes, I think.

(You are pretty charming, although he didn’t have to potty train you.)

It isn’t fair, at all, that he won’t be around to watch you get bigger, go to school, hit a baseball, fall in love, all the rest of it. It isn’t fair at all that you won’t have him around to talk about trains, buy you gifts I’ve forbidden, show you how to mow the lawn, give you advice.

But he packed a lot of love into the first few years of your life, and that’s gotta count for something.

Pause

2011-08-22T20:59:00.001-07:00

We’re experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.

Freeze these moments

2011-07-17T14:18:00.001-07:00

Summer sort of has us in hiatus. It’s decided to put in appearance this year, so the past few weeks have been a repeating loop of fun in the garden, fun in the sprinkler, go for an ice cream, have dinner on the deck, recover in the air conditioning, turn on the sprinkler again.

Not so much with the blogging.

So I don’t have a lot to report. You drive me crazy every day, and I love you like crazy every day. You mostly go to the bathroom on the potty, except when you’re distracted or excited or feeling stubborn or just plain forgot.

Okay, “mostly” might be an overstatement. Still, we’re getting there.

You spend 9 hours every weekday at daycare, and I’m inclined to feel guilty about that except that you love it. You play in sand and water and paint and foam, you sing songs and learn and laugh and make and break friendships 5 times a day. Every once in a while you say you don’t want to go. Every time your father or I offers to trade places because man, who wouldn’t want to go there every day?

I feel like we’ve finally gotten into the “zone” as a family, with your father and I on the same schedule and happy with our jobs, with nothing major breaking or going wrong, with our parental ‘tag-team’ pretty much down pat. Sometimes, at perfectly normal moments, like getting ready in the morning together or sitting over dinner, I am so overwhelmed with how much I love our lives together that I almost cry.

So, nothing big to report.

And that’s just fine.

Happy Canada Day!

2011-07-01T19:45:00.001-07:00

Let us all celebrate with bouncy castles.

And kitty faces.

But not, as some if us may have, by putting our 3 year olds alone onto a hay ride, with the expectation that said hay ride wouldn't, say, start leaving the grounds entirely, with your baby perched precariously on the rickety edge, bound for parts unknown, while you trotted ineffectually after it trying not to panic.

No, that's not very celebratory at all.

(You were unharmed and unfazed. Back in ten minutes. I, however, may have a few new patriotic grey hairs.)

I guess I should re-evaluate for summer

2011-06-28T20:01:00.001-07:00

You: "Moooommmm, I'm hungry."

Me: "Xander, you're just stalling bedtime."

You: *eats entire chicken breast*

Me:"...Oh."

Your generation is just THAT technologically savvy

2011-06-19T14:51:00.001-07:00

I promise to stop blogging about poop soon. All you have to do is start pooping in the toilet.

Anyway. There has been some success with your ability to pee on the potty, but fecal matter is another story. I actually think you don’t like the feeling of hanging your bum over the toilet. In an effort to motivate you, I made the grave tactical error of promising you a new toy if you managed to perform.

(I should have known that was a mistake, as when I’d introduced the idea of a reward for potty performance originally, you spent an entire evening sitting on the loo, completely distressed at your inability to poop on command, exclaiming, “Come on, bum. Come ON!”, eventually sobbing on my shoulder because you waaaannntteed that caaaa-aah-aaah-ndy, until I proclaimed that I’d heard a little plop! I was sure of it! And let you have a tiny piece of chocolate, lest you rupture something.)

You sat on the toilet for an hour, trying to earn that toy. Eventually I distracted you with something else, and you hopped off.

You pooped in your diaper 5 minutes later.

“Okay, buddy,” I sighed. “Let’s change your bum.”

“I wanna poop on the potty, Mom!”

“Xander, you already pooped in your diaper. I don’t think any more poop is going to come out.”

“It will, Mom,” you insisted, mounting the steps to take your throne. “It’s just checkin’ its email.”

By the numbers

2011-06-12T19:55:00.001-07:00

Things you do that are cute and/or entertaining:

1. Insist we call you Littlefoot.

2. Deliberately misinterpret things we say, such as this morning when you were trying to talk your way out of eating with a fork, and your father said, “Look, I see your argument. But still, no,” and you replied, “Oh, you see it? Where is it? Is it back there?”

(Hard to discipline someone for impertinence when they’re making you crack up.)

3. Make up entire conversations between your toys.

4. Cry, “Mommy!!” with a thousand-watt grin when I arrive to pick you up.

5. Do things like climb into our bed because of a thunderstorm, wait until we’re positive you’re asleep, and then whisper, “Daddy? Smell my feet.”

Things you do that are not so cute and certainly not entertaining:

1. Whine. Stooooooooppppp with the whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiining.

2. Sabotage potty training at every turn, including sitting patiently on the potty for 20 minutes until I’m certain I’ve missed the cue, and then peeing on the floor 30 seconds later.

3. Act like an insane person when you’re tired or hungry. The maniacal laughter is unnerving.

4. Flat out ignore me.

5. Did I mention the potty training? Seriously, just poop on the goddamn toilet already.

Meh. We’ll call it even.

Precious

2011-05-31T19:57:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we made a quick day trip to the small(er) town where your father grew up. Your grandmother maintains a collection of his childhood toys, and generally tries to offload them on us whenever possible. We told you that you could select ONE to bring home.

You picked the biggest possible one, of course, a G.I. Joe jet fighter.

You quickly became rather fond of it.

Really rather fond.

It’s worth $120 on eBay, apparently. But it’s worth way more than that to us and your grandmother to see you so happy to have it.

So. Yeah. It’s that time.

2011-05-20T20:20:00.001-07:00

On Mother’s Day, at the very end of the night, your father gave you a bath and I read some blogs or something. I heard voices from upstairs, and you came to the top of the stairs and yelled, “Moooooom, I pooped in the potty!”

Best Mother’s Day EVER.

We made a big deal out of it, you got a piece of leftover Easter candy. I thought – finally! Some progress on the potty front!

Except, the next night (because you always poop at about the same time, as one does), I said, “Let’s go sit on the potty, buddy.”

“No,” you said matter-of-factly, “I’m no pooping, mom.”

“Are you sure?” I said suspiciously.

“Yep!”

2 minutes later I wrinkled my nose and sighed in exasperation.

“Xander…if you were pooping, why didn’t you tell me so we could sit you on the potty?”

“I didn’t want any Easter candy,” you explained.

***

So. Yeah. That is what we’re dealing with. I do think you “get” it, it’s just a power struggle. You are not a morning person, so asking that you sit on the toilet as soon as you wake up is met with a snappish, “No!”. You will sit on it every other time of day, for a while, except that it always seems to time out to be…5 minutes before you actually do your business.

I’m looking into some kind of potty-training summer camp. They have that, right?

Mother’s Day

2011-05-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

Today was Mother’s Day, and you presented me with some tulips, my favorite.

“Those are Mommy’s favorite,” your father told you.

“I like tulips,” I agreed.

“Oh,” you said. “You don’t like one lip?”

Thank you for another year of love, learning, and laughter.

Even if you did insist today was “Mommy and Xander Day”.

But you can’t drive til you’re 16

2011-05-03T20:23:00.001-07:00

Now that I have a new job, and your father has a day job, we get to establish family institutions like this:

Saturday Morning Mario Kart.

It’s the grown-up thing to do.

Easter

2011-04-25T20:19:00.001-07:00

This is the first year I’ve really “done” Easter, you know, with the hiding of eggs and stories of large home-invading rabbits. There were some logistics involved, since the dog would obviously snarf anything I hid faster than you could find it, so she had to be sequestered downstairs.

I thought you understood about the Easter Bunny, except, apparently you expected to see him. You didn’t really seem to get that he’d already “been” here, and had left you treats hidden around the house. I mean, why would he do that when he left half of the goods right out in the open, sitting in the easter basket you made at daycare?

So you picked up the egg that was immediately obvious, and another one that you saw, and then started to eat them.

“No, sweetie, the Bunny told me he’d hid ten eggs for you. There are 8 more!”

“Oh,” you replied. You seemed unconcerned with the proverbial birds in the bush, when you already had two in the hand. (This is probably a philosophy I shouldn’t try too enthusiastically to squash.)

“Don’t you want to find the other eggs?”

“Where are dey?” you asked.

“No, you’re supposed to look for them. The Easter Bunny hid them to make it fun.”

“I can’t find dem,” you informed me immediately, without looking. “You find dem?”

“I will help you look for them,” I promised, and then spent 20 minutes ‘helping’ you find 8 measly peanut butter eggs with encouraging words such as, “I hear the Easter Bunny likes to hide things near books,” and “Only 6 more to go!” and “For the luvva! It’s RIGHT THERE!”

You actually rolled your eyes at me at one point.

I think both of us enjoy eating them way more.

Size matters

2011-04-16T20:34:00.001-07:00

You relate a lot of things to size. Small things are always the babies, big things are the mommies or daddies. Big people, in your mind, are more competent. When you are feeling confident in your ability to do something, you will declare yourself a “big boy”. You tell me quite frequently that, “it’s okay, Daddy can do it, he’s a big boy.”

(Usually this is pretty cute. Once, when I was helping you play a video game, I flubbed a level and remarked, “Oh, Mama’s not very good at this.” You replied with, “Oh, Daddy is better at it? Because he is a big boy?” That was…not as endearing.)

Yesterday I got the dreaded Call from daycare: you had a high fever. I collected you immediately (you were lying on the floor) and took you home to fill you full of fluids and pain reliever.

It wasn’t quite doing the trick, though; your fever was still pretty high, and you started to get shaky and weepy, so I took you to the medi-clinic this morning. You’re not normally a big complainer. Despite all evidence to the contrary – red eyes, nose full of snot – you’ll usually declare yourself feeling “ok”. Shaky and weepy – and then, in the waiting room, crying about joint pain – is kind of a big deal.

The medi-zombie took the usual perfunctory look in your ears and throat, declared it an infection, and prescribed penicillin. Of course.

I got you home, dosed you with banana-flavored medicine, and installed you on the couch with movies and four different kinds of juice.

“Are you feeling better, buddy?” your father asked.

“Yes,” you answered, not very convincingly.

“Were you good at the doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you were. You’re a big boy,” your father said, conveying both confidence in your recovery and pride in your toughness.

“No,” you said in a trembly voice. “I am just smaller. And smaller and smaller.”

(You did look pretty small, there, for a few hours. But the fever came down and you’re back to being larger than life, telling me elaborate stories and arguing over bedtime.)

That awkward phase

2011-04-10T20:47:00.001-07:00

“Mom, you pull this?”

“Sorry, sweetie, there’s not enough snow.”

“Oh. You pull this one?”

“Um, there’s kind of too much snow for that one.”

“Oh.”

“You may just have to walk.”

Hair

2011-04-06T20:07:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid, I had very long straight hair. Your grandmother used to tell me that the Tangle Fairy visited at night, because every morning I’d wake up with huge snarls.

It’s possible we may revive that little family myth.

***

You do have long hair. Reeeaaallly quite long. I don’t care, personally, and every time I suggest cutting it (usually when it’s tangled and snarled), you forcefully resist.

Your father doesn’t mind either, unless people mistake you for a girl. This is unlikely to happen, particularly since you’ve started wanting to dress in what you call “GI Joe” gear.

I told you I didn’t want you to wear the pants AND the shirt, it’s “too much GI Joe”, you’re not a hunter. You effectively out-maneuvered me by asking me to dress you in the shirt, and then later asking your father to get you the pants.

“It’s too much, Mama!” you exclaimed gleefully. “Too much GI Joe!”

***

A hair conversation:

“Xander, you have to wear a hat.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s still cold and wind will blow in your ears.”

“Oh, and in my hair?”

“Yes, and in your hair. So let’s put your hat on your head.”

“My head is hairy?”

“Yes, your head is most certainly hairy.”

(with a mischievous grin) “No….my hair is head-y!”

Wordplay is also apparently a family favorite.

Argumentative

2011-03-27T10:02:00.001-07:00

“Xander, please don’t sit on the dog’s bed,” I chastise you.

“Why?” you demand.

“Because it makes her sad. Look, she’s over there on the floor. Get off of her bed, please.”

“But she said yes, Mom,” you inform me confidently.

“Oh, did she.” I raise an eyebrow.

You nod solemnly, not moving from the dog’s bed. “She did. She shook her head up and down.”

***

“Mom, you come downstairs with me?” you ask, while we’re out at the Ranch. “You play trains with me?”

“Mama is just going to have a cup of coffee,” I deflect. “Then I’ll come downstairs.”

“Oh.” You move on to harassing the dog, opening every spice jar, trying to take things off the shelves, pleading for more ice cream.

“Xander,” your grandfather says finally, “Why don’t you go downstairs and play with the trains? I can hear them calling you.”

“Okay!” You leap up. “I’M COMING, TRAINS!” you bellow, while your grandparents and I try not to giggle. Then you pause at the top of the stairs. “Mama, those trains are calling you, too.”

***

After eating enough of your dinner, your grandparents will give you a little ice cream. I have some, too, but I eat a lot more slowly.

“Mama,” you ask me, after wolfing down your own dessert, “I have some of your ice cream?”

“No.”

“Oh, why?” You are inching closer to me.

“Because you had yours, Xander. This is Mama’s ice cream.”

“Oh.” You consider this for a moment. Then something twigs and you look up at me, beaming, confident you’ve found a solution.

“Mama, I borrow some?”

Hey, my patience does have limits! Who would have guessed. (Other than EVERYBODY.)

2011-03-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

I wrote that I don’t mind your endless questions, but I’ve found an exception to the rule: When I’m reading you a story.

For some reason, the constant interruptions drive me crazy. Books have a rhythm to them, dammit, and asking me to same question 4 times tends to break the flow.

“The night Max wore his wolf suit – “

“Why he wearing his woof suit?”

“Because he’s pretending to be a wolf. He made mischief of one kind – “

“He’s maaaaaaad.”

“Yes. He made mischief of one kind, and another – “

“Why he got a fork?”

“Because he’s trying to stab the dog. It’s mischievous. His mother called him ‘WILD THING!’ and Max said ‘I’LL EAT YOU UP!’ so he – “

“That’s his roooom.”

“Yes.” (skips ahead several pages.) “..and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are.”

“Who dat guy?”

“That’s a wild thing. And when he –“

(Grabs page and flips it back.) “What’s his name?”

“His name is Gerald.” (flips page forwards.) “And when he came to the place-“

“Who dose guys?”

“Those are also wild things. When he came to the –“

“What dere names?”

“Um, Frank. And Charles. And that one’s Rosie. When he came to the – “

“No, DAT one is Frank. Dat one is Angeleeeeena.”

“Fine. They rolled their terrible eyes, and they – “

“Dat one is Angeleeeena, Mom.”

“Okay! That one is Angelina! Great! They rolled their eyes and Max was king but he didn’t like it so he went home to have supper theend.” (slaps book shut) “Let’s have a snack!”

I love books, but maybe reading them to you will have to be your father’s arena for a while.

Updates.

2011-03-06T11:33:00.001-08:00

I feel like I am a bad storyteller, or at least a bad blogger, because I only pop in here every two weeks to give you the Cliff’s Notes version of what’s going on. As if you don’t do a thousand other things daily that are worth mentioning. You do. I just…don’t have time to mention them.

And I’ve realized I sort of write about things once and then never bring them up again, so this is an “update” post, if you will.

You still see the “guy” in the bathroom wall sometimes, although you aren’t afraid of him anymore. To be clear, I am very non-committal when you tell me he’s there, so I don’t think you are continuing to bring it up just to get a rise out of me. Whether it’s something paranormal or just a weird reflection that I’m not seeing, who knows. I try not to think about it when I’m showering.

Also, this morning you declared him one of “two daddies” that live in our house, and said you “loved him”. So I guess there’s no ill-will there. (Except from your father, who wasn’t terribly pleased about having to share.)

The violence at school is still sort of simmering under the surface. For the last week or so, you’ve been completely inconsolable when I drop you off. One of the staff either has to distract you or I have to kiss you goodbye through the glass that you’re smearing with your tiny hands and your teary lips, blowing kisses all the way to the car.

Finally, after asking you a bunch of times WHY you didn’t want to go to school, I said, “Don’t you want to play with your friends?”

“No,” you sniffed. “They don’t want me.”

“Why not?” I asked calmly. While my heart cracked audibly.

“I am a big kid,” you explained. “They are littler kids.”

I tried to explain to you that kids of all sizes were able to play together, but you weren’t convinced. Finally I brought it up with the daycare director, who told me that they were continuing to work with you regarding occasional “aggression” and that maybe the other kids weren’t wanting to play with you?

I think, given this collection of information, that part of the problem is that you’re just too damn BIG. You’re the size of a 1st grader, but with the enthusiasm of a regular 3 year old (and the training of a labrador puppy). I’ve seen you interact with them; you’re not aggressive, exactly, but you’re rammy, and I can see why a smaller kid wouldn’t want to invite you to play.

Whatever the daycare director did to address the problem seems to have worked, though, since the last couple of days of the week, you were perfectly happy to be dropped off. Lets hope it holds.

And, this isn’t really an update, but you need a damn haircut.

Things you’ve said to me upon waking up

2011-03-03T19:03:00.001-08:00

“Our house doesn’t have wings.”

“There are monkeys outside the window.”

“I don’t want to step on the floor.”

“I don’t waaaannnnnaaa be awake, I don’t waaaannnnnaaa go to school! I don’t like school! You close my door!”

I hear that last one a lot. You are not a morning person.

I’m aware that you come by it honestly, and I’m sure if your grandmother could see our daily routine, she’d laugh. A lot. She herself is an early riser, and was tasked with the chore of getting me to class on time all the way through high school. I probably wouldn’t have graduated otherwise; still, she didn’t have to be so damn cheery about it.

(She used to stand in the doorway and sing. Good morning to you! Good morning to you! We’re all in our places, with jam on our faces! I assume she stood there to stay out of throwing range.)

This is my karmic payback for being miserable to my own mother. I can’t torture you with cheer, because I feel your pain. I don’t waaaaaannnna be awake either, and I certainly don’t waaaaaannnnna go to work.

In fact, some mornings I thrash around, pull the covers back over my head, and whine a little, too.

How long til you can join in the morning rite of coffee?

Q & A

2011-02-15T01:22:00.000-08:00

I think I mentioned a while back that you are into the “why?” stage. This is never more apparent than when we are in the car, and you don’t have anything better to do than to ask me questions.

“Why you stoppin’?”

Because the light is red.

“Why that light is red?”

Because red means stop.

“Ohhhhhhhh. Why you drivin’ now?”

As exasperating as this is sometimes, I kind of love it. It helps me to see the world the way you do, with fresh eyes, and sometimes I really have to think about the answers. Occasionally you even stump me.

“Why we stoppin’, Momma?”

We’re going through the drive through to get a coffee and a bagel.

“Ohhhhhh. All those cars getting bagels, too?”

Some of them are.

“I don’t want them to get my bagels!”

There are lots of bagels. Probably most of them are just getting coffee.

“Why they gettin’ coffee?”

Because it tastes good.

“Why it taste good?”

…uh…

I don’t know, why does coffee taste good? It really shouldn’t. It’s bitter and gives you bad breath and you need to either “acquire a taste” or dump a truckload of sugar in it. And yet, here we are.

I also find myself being a little more aware of what I’m telling you:

“Where dat car going?”

I don’t know, maybe he lives over there.

“Why he live over there?”

~~That’s a good question, that’s a really shitty part of town.~~

…the property taxes are low.

So I’m just going to indulge my inner student and see how many questions I can get “right”, for the short period in which you’re actually interested in what I have to say.

(About a week?)

I will never get tired of this. Never.

2011-02-12T11:51:00.001-08:00

It only took 3.5 years.

Careful. I might come to expect this.

2011-02-02T19:13:00.001-08:00

Last week I went to the BlissDom blogging conference in Nashville. I wasn’t worried that you would miss me; I fully expected you to react like last time.

I guess I should have worried. Daycare said you wouldn’t nap, and cried for me. your father said you kept asking where I was. (For the record, I did try to explain it to you in advance.) I came home late Saturday night, and in the morning we had this conversation when you crawled out of bed and lurched into the kitchen:

“Mom, you came back!” you exclaimed.

“Of course I did, bud.”

“You not sleepin’? Why you not sleepin’?”

“I wanted to wake up and see you, sweetie.”

“You missin’ me?”

“I did miss you, very much.”

“I no wanna miss you. I love you.”

Then you gave me a big hug, and didn’t let me out of your sight for the entire day.

I guess this parenting gig might have its rewards after all.

A worthy goal on any day, even I fail sometimes

2011-01-22T14:47:00.001-08:00

This week you had a…not-very-good day at daycare. When your father picked you up, you were crying in a time-out, and a little girl was crying in the other corner. Because you’d walked up and hit her in the eye.

Ugh.

Your whole day was like that, apparently, resistance to everything, full-on aggression towards other kids, even kids much older and larger than you. I’m not really sure what was going on, but obviously we had quite a chat that night about how hitting is wrong.

And then again, the next morning, when I dropped you off, I gave you a hug and said, “Be good, okay?”

“Ok.”

“Listen to your teachers.”

“Ok.”

“Don’t hit people.”

“Ok.”

Of course when we picked you up the interrogation commenced:

“How was your day? Were you good? Did you listen? Did you hit anyone?”

“No,” you assured us, “I d’int hit anyone.”

I knew the indoctrination was reaching max capacity when I asked you, over pancakes to begin the weekend, “So what do you want to do today, bud?”

“…not hit anybody.” you replied.

So…how do you feel about being raised a vegan? I hear you get super powers.

2011-01-14T07:14:00.001-08:00

You, pointing to the chicken carcass that remained of our dinner: “Whass dat?”

Me: “That’s a chicken.”

You: “Whass his name?”

Me: “Um…I’m not sure.”

You: “Whass his NAME?”

Me: “I don’t know, buddy. I try not to be on a first-name basis with my food.”

You: “You took his arms? You took his eyes?”

Me: “Well…not me personally, but someone did, yes.”

You: “He has no head?”

Me: “No, no head.”

You: “Someone took his head with a big KNIFE?”

Me: “…can we talk about something else now? I’m trying to finish my drumstick.”

You: “He has no EYES.”

Me: “Have you been talking to those PETA people??"

I don’t have any wool, actually. Thanks for asking at the top of your lungs.

2011-01-10T19:28:00.001-08:00

I’ve been writing a letter to you in my head, for a couple of weeks. It’s mostly an apology.

You see, I’ve been dealing with some stressors that are unrelated to you, and the situations aren’t getting resolved as quickly as I’d like. Or…at all. So I’m frustrated, on top of the stress, and it tends to make me snappish and impatient. I feel like you’re getting a raw deal, because I’m not being the parent I’d like to be. I’m not being the person I really am, to be honest. I’m testy and humorless and I yell far too often.

I don’t want you to grow up thinking that’s who your mother is.

But today, I felt a little better. I could smile at your endless monologue. You didn’t feel compelled to repeat my sighs of exasperation back to me. So I’ll just tell you about your latest development: singing.

You must sing a lot at your new daycare (that we refer to as ‘school’), because you came home singing the alphabet one day. Then I noticed that you seemed to remember anything sung to you, and were repeating it later in the day, or the next day, or the next week. You sing the alphabet, and ‘Sandwiches are Fine’, and ‘Garbage Truck’ from the Scott Pilgrim movie.

(You can blame that one on your dad.)

You also sing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. You sing this one a LOT. It’s your go-to ‘avoidance’ song.

You sing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ randomly, but mostly you start singing it when I’m saying something you don’t agree with.

“Xander, please stop playing with your food.”

“Baa, baaaaa, back sheep…”

“Xander.”

“HAVEYOU ANY WOOAH!”

“Xander, stop—“

“THREEEE BAGS FUULLL!!!!”

You sing it when you have to tidy things up, and I hear you singing it in your bed when you’re attempting to deny sleep. It’s pretty funny, at least when it’s not being bellowed in my face.

Now if only I could find the right song to holler at MY problems.

And yet, still no progress on the potty front

2010-12-29T19:41:00.001-08:00

Today we took you to the Science Centre. You love it there – I have to assume that you’re learning by osmosis, because it’s not like you read any of the information, or play with any of the exhibits in the way they’re intended.

Maybe you’ll do that next year.

Anyway, as we were trying to convince you to leave, you plopped yourself down in front of this computer and informed us,

“Uh, I jus haffa check my email.”

…okay then. Do we say that a lot? We must say that a lot. But it sounded so grown up.

My dismay was not at ALL pacified when, later in the car, you said,

“Mom? Keely? Um, Keely?”

Your father and I stared at each other, unsure whether to laugh or cry or correct you or what.

“…yes, sweetie?”

“Um, Keely, you give dis to {your father’s first name}?” you answered nonchalantly, holding a toy out towards me.

Holy. Crap. Need I remind you, YOU’RE THREE?

I thought we had at least a couple of years before you started trying to push our buttons by using our given names.

This parenting gig needs to come with an agenda.

Another year, another Christmas

2010-12-27T20:24:00.001-08:00

This year, Christmas was one that we spent at your paternal grandparents’ house, in your father’s hometown.

It certainly wouldn’t be my first choice, but it isn’t about me. I owe you to them, and more importantly, I owe them to you. So I sack up, and we go.

(I’m not above complaining, though.)

It was festive and chaotic and stressful and not at all how I would prefer to spent our holidays. You loved it.

This was probably the last Christmas we had with you before it’s a full-on commercial greed-fest, so that was nice. But it didn’t really feel Christmassy to me, until today back at home. You and I went for a walk to the “snow park” (during the summer it is the “sand park”, for obvious reasons, and it is officially known as “candy cane park”, for not-so-obvious reasons). We dawdled all the way there in the winter sunshine, kicking chunks of snow and holding hands to cross the roads.

I listened to the swish of your ski pants and to your monologue:

“Mom, see this? Iss a snowball? It come with me to the snow park? Aw, iss okay, snowball, you come with us. See, I carry it? Iss a snowball? It come with us? Uh oh, I dropped it. Mom, I dropped it? You see, I dropped it?”

“It’s okay.”

“Yes, iss okay. We still going to snow park. I dropped snowball. Mom, wait up! You see those footprints? What those footprints? Big footprints, yes.”

We played in the snow and on the half-buried swings. On the way back the wind was against us, and you were getting tired.

“I cold. I can’t walk.”

I picked you up, your face to mine so your back was to the wind. You saw your own reflection in my sunglasses and broke out in a huge grin.

“You see your reflection, bud?”

“Yes, my frection. I see TWO frections!” you answered gleefully.

And that was Christmas. It’s about the gifts, after all.

You napped in there. I think we have an outdoorsman on our hands.

2010-12-13T20:10:00.001-08:00

There is so much branding in this post I am kind of sick.

2010-12-05T10:32:00.001-08:00

I read Jenni’s post, “Leverage”, last week with amusement. Her son is about 6 months older than you, but I anticipated probably using Santa as leverage this year, too.

What I didn’t realize is that it also works the other way.

This morning I took you to Wal-Mart. I hate going there and so do you…unless of course there’s something in it for you. But I had to get Advil really badly, and your father worked late last night, so I wanted to let him sleep. I bribed you with the promise of selecting ONE toy (maybe a $1 Hot Wheels car), and off we went.

You picked up a shirt with your favorite Cars character almost right off the bat.

“I want dis,” you proclaimed. Ugh. $12 for a shirt, Disney? Fine. I guess you need clothes.

Two aisles later you declared your undying love of some fingerpaints. Messy, sure, but about half the price, so I let you choose them and put the shirt back.

We continued through the store that way, you trading up to a $30 art set, and then back down to a soft plushie penguin. I left the toy aisle for last, hoping to talk you into that $1 Hot Wheels car. Instead you latched on to a small set of bright yellow Tonka trucks, which were at least reasonably priced (although I didn’t realize until we got home that every single one makes some kind of obnoxious noise).

The trucks lasted through several temptations on the way to the till, so I thought that you had claimed your prize. Until we got to the checkout and you tried to trade again – for a massive bag of M&Ms.

“Uh, no,” I told you. “We aren’t getting those, sorry, buddy. Come on, it’s almost our turn.”

“I put dis back!” you protested, trying to set the trucks on the shelf.

“Sweetie, you can’t trade for those. We’re not getting the M&Ms. It’s the trucks or nothing,” I said firmly, moving ahead of you. “Come on, it’s our turn. Mama’s going to go pay now, you’d better hurry up or I won’t be able to pay for your trucks!”

A nice woman, there with her mother and her infant, was standing behind you watching with amusement as you muttered and paced undecided in front of the candy. Suddenly she gave a little whoop of laughter.

“Did you hear what he said?” she asked me. I shook my head.

“He said, ‘But I want them for Santa’!”

Oh yeah. That law degree is looking likely for you.

Things you hate

2010-11-27T20:24:00.001-08:00

1. Pants. Well, who doesn’t, really. But I have the same, drawn-out, 20 to 40 minute argument with you every single morning. And then again if you happen to need removal of your pants for any reason. Which, considering you continue to shun the potty, is fairly often.

2. The potty. You also hate having your diaper changed. I think you’d be happy if you were just left to haul around a 30-lb butt-bag of feces.

3. Tags. Like inside articles of clothing, tags. A recent conversation: “Here, Xander, put your mitts on.” “Okay” (dons left mitt). “Here’s the other one.” “Okay….aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhshhhhhahhh! THERE’S A TAG IN IT!!”

4. Your winter coat. I’m thinking that it’s maybe similar to the tags? Because it’s just THAT coat. Maybe it feels like one big tag.

5. Getting into the car. Actually, getting out of the house and into the car is a great big deal. You’re usually pretty resigned by the time we actually get to the car.

6. Getting out of the car. Once you’re in there, you assume we’re going somewhere good. So when we get to where we’re going – like, oh, say, HOME, the place you didn’t want to leave to begin with – you’re a little miffed and refuse to get out of the car.

6. Remembering names. Well, it’s not so much you hate it as you’re just bad at it. You’ve been at your daycare a month now and you call every single girl there by the same name. Which offends the other 90%. (The remaining percentage you offend by bellowing her name about 3 inches away from her face.)

All your other likes and dislikes fluctuate arbitrarily. But those are pretty consistent.

For a toddler.

Your imagination is freaking me out a little

2010-11-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

Tonight, as I towelled you off after your bath, you told me with certainty as you pointed to the ceramic tile wall:

"There's a guy there."

I glanced up. "That's just a reflection, sweetie," I explained.

"No," you insisted, "It's a guy."

"Well, tell him it's creepy to watch little boys bathe," I replied.

Then you moved closer to me, covering your eyes with your hands, and whispered, "I need go in my room. He's scarin me."

And you ran into your bedroom and refused to go back into the bathroom even to retrieve your beloved Eeyore costume. You didn't seem particularly scared, though you claimed to be, just matter-of-factly told me that you couldn't go back in there.

Okay then.

Later I asked you if the "guy" was still there. You went and looked and said, "No. He closed his eyes."

Yeesh.

(You couldn't tell me if he looked like Bruce Willis or not.)

Major upheaval, and also apparently you’re still huge

2010-11-08T20:31:00.001-08:00

So. New daycare.

We weren’t dissatisfied with the other dayhome, especially. It was fine. It just wasn’t…great. I wasn’t a fan of what she fed you, and in addition to the rather traumatizing ‘losing you out the back gate’ incident, she managed to forget that you might be very allergic to raw tomatoes.

(You’re not, as it turns out. Since you ate one. But that’s not exactly the point.)

Still, she loves you. But I felt that she was letting you charm her too much, and every morning I had to endure a litany of “I don’t waaaannnna go to daycare,” from you, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because you’re not a morning person.

Well, it wasn’t only that.

A spot opened up in the dayhome that two of my friends take their kids to, one kid being a boy close to your age. I thought that might be more fun for you, and the woman came highly recommended, so we went to meet them on a Sunday. You liked them, or rather, their massive house full of toys and their backyard with a trampoline.

I thought I might make the switch, but I thought since we were going to do that anyway, that I’d check in with the co-op daycare of my choice. The one where you’d been on the waiting list for over two years.

And they had a spot.

And angels sang hosannahs and a light shone down, or something. I was happier than a daycare situation should justifiably make me.

Your dayhome lady was a little hurt, I think. She told me stories of other parents who had taken their children out of the co-op. She and the kids made you a huge card and a crown, and said they would miss you desperately. I felt…a little angst over what must have seemed like a hasty choice.

But.

Your went to your new daycare (which we are calling ‘school’ so as not to cause any confusion), for 4-1/2 days last week – much longer than your usual 3. And I didn’t hear “I don’t waaaaannnna go to school,” one single time. You barely noticed I left, and you absolutely do NOT want to be picked up, not even by your father.

Two of the mornings you didn’t even argue about pants. You HATE pants.

So I’m counting that as a win.

Also, this morning I took you for your 3 year well-check, and you’re somewhere between the 103rd and the Ridiculously large mark for height and weight.

(I did make you take the crown off, so it’s a true weight.)

Tit for Tat

2010-11-04T19:49:00.001-07:00

Me, to your father, while you are flailing around on the kitchen floor screaming: “Don’t talk to him when he’s having a tantrum like that. Just ignore him. If you don’t engage, he’ll stop doing it.”

****

Me, later that evening: “Raaarr! That drives me crazy!!”

Your father: “What?”

Me: “When he just IGNORES me like that!

I haven’t written anything because I stored you in the freezer for the past two weeks. HA! Kidding. You don’t like it when I do that, so I stopped.

2010-11-01T13:46:00.001-07:00

So. Right. This blog.

A lot has been happening, which means that I don’t have time to sit and write and when I do, I’d rather sit and…sit.

I mean, there was that whole Hallowe’en thing, which honestly was quite overwhelming and seemed to take up a lot of time and I’d prove it to you, except that I neglected to take a single picture.

Mom of the year.

It’s okay, you’ll be wearing your Eeyore costume for at least 3 more weeks (because you’ve been wearing it for 3 weeks already), and all I need to do to recreate last night is let you eat the equivalent amount of candy. You have enough there for at least a week’s worth of recreations, provided I don’t eat it first, which of course is no provision at all.

Although the look on your face when we visited the first house and you realized that there was an entire bowl of candy and you could just take some, is a picture I can’t re-create. Now you’re all cynical and experienced (and much more interested in eating said candy than in procuring more).

We’ve also switched your daycare from a dayhome to a daycare centre, which means lots more kids and activities and general mayhem. You had your first half-day today. It was overwhelming enough for you that you were actually glad to be rescued at lunch, and rubbing your eyes, and the combination of all the newness and excitement and Hallowe’en candy blood sugar crash means that you’re WAY too amped up to consent to a nap.

So I’m hiding in the kitchen waiting for you to fall asleep in front of the tv.

Did I mention I was Mom of the year?

Whatever. I control the candy.

Could you slow down?

2010-10-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

So, you did some stuff. And it was adorable. Then there was that other thing, that was so friggin' cute.

Every day you do something, many things really, that are cute and funny and just plain amazing. I have no idea which ones I should be writing down. It almost seems like I forget them instantly, because I'm so busy being entertained by the next thing you're doing.

You throw dance parties for yourself in the kitchen, singing every 5th or 6th word, ending them with mighty flourishes.

You have conversations between inanimate objects, including goldfish crackers: "Achoo!" "Did you sneeze?" "Yes, I sneezed."

You "luff" everything and everything is also your "best friend". It could be your toys, your lunch, the car, the dead leaves on the porch, but you "luuuuffff" them.

You cuddle things that just aren't cuddly, like your toy cars or Play-Doh.

You will try everything in your power to delay bedtime, including attempting to convince me that your father told you that you could sleep on the dogs bed. At top volume.

(Okay, that last one wasn't THAT cute.)

I think I need a transcriber. Or a reality tv crew.

I even tried singing you the Brusha Brusha Brusha song. Who doesn't like the Brusha Brusha Brusha song?

2010-10-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

So. Let's talk about your teeth.

They're gross.

When you were a baby, I could stick my finger in there with one of those little scrubber things and risk a puncture to get the job done. When you got a few more teeth (and more psi in your jaw muscles), I put a toothbrush in your hand and showed you how to brush. You thought the toothbrush was so much fun!

So much fun that you used it to clean the kitchen tile, and your toys, and the dog. Oh, and the inside of the drain.

After I got you a new brush you decided it wasn't fun anymore. I cajoled you into copying your father while he brushed. And it worked!

Twice!

Then you stole his brush and did unspeakable things with it. He decided he wasn't going to volunteer to do that anymore, because we couldn't afford a new toothbrush every day or an armed guard to keep you away from it. You still didn't have any interest in the act of brushing.

So I bought you a more exciting toothbrush, one with Tigger on it, that vibrated. You thought that was so cool. You even brushed a couple of teeth with it!

But it was way more fun to take the Tigger brush and leave it running on the coffee table, where the dog licked it a couple of times, and the batteries died. Then it went missing for a few days. I found it under the couch, encrusted with dirt and squashed raisins.

I bought a new brush, a who-cares-how-fun-this-is brush, and pinned you down and brushed your damn teeth for you. That worked. At least twice. But the screaming and the chasing and the emotional punishment was kind of exhausting, and then you figured out that I always wanted to brush your teeth before bed, so you started fighting bedtime too. I caved. I made halfhearted efforts to get you to brush your teeth in the afternoon, or in the bath, but you weren't getting fooled by that again. Sometimes you'd acquiesce, and then just eat the toothpaste.

Then I read something on the internet and it seemed like a good idea - brushing your teeth while letting you brush mine. How fun! And it worked!

Twice! Once for each parent. Then you went back to avoiding my sing-songy calls to brush your teeth, totally not fooled by how 'fun' I was making it seem, and faking an interest in the contents of the fridge, or resorting to throwing a tantrum if I forced the issue.

So now we're back to...gross teeth. I'm out of ideas.

Hopefully I get inspired before your permanent set come in.

Rollercoaster

2010-10-04T20:25:00.001-07:00

At one week, I had it under control.

At one month, I was overwhelmed.

At one year, things were amazing, happening so fast, but so wonderful.

At 18 months, life was precarious. I lived moment to ohholycrapcatchhim moment.

At two years, I lived in constant amazement of the things you were learning, doing, saying.

At 2-1/2 years, I wanted to scream, cry in frustration, hide you away. Hide me away.

And here we are, at three years. Back on top of the world, feeling more than okay with the way things are going, the “I’m a good and responsible parent with a good and responsible son” days far outnumbering the “I can’t do this” days in my mind. I find myself grinning more foolishly than ever at each word out of your mouth. And I look back over the last three years and I see that I am higher, higher than all the highs before, higher than I thought was possible. The tiny lights of my previous life are just twinkling stardust below us.

Happy birthday, sweetie. Here’s to an endless supply of dizzying years.

You teach me so much

2010-09-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

...like that apparently, in the wild, dinosaurs will gather around and feast on leftover turkey meatballs.

Who knew?

Monsters

2010-09-22T20:23:00.001-07:00

Lately, you are obsessed with monsters. “Ah!” you pretend-scream. “Monsters in street! Monsters!”

I know that most parents tell their children that there is no such thing as monsters, but that doesn’t seem truthful to me. Instead, I tell you that they aren’t allowed in the house.

(I come by this particular quirkiness honestly. Your grandmother tells me that, as most children do, I went through the phase of becoming aware of death as permanent. She couldn’t bring herself to reassure me, when I continually asked her to promise that she wouldn’t die – I mean, she could get hit by a bus the next day, right?)

Mostly, you don’t seem perturbed by the monsters. They’re a game. I’ve had to reassure you a couple of times at night that they’re still not allowed in the house, but generally you’re not worried.

Eventually I will have to tell you about the real monsters. The ones that wear human skins, cleverly stitched together so that their scales don’t show. The ones that have a glamor around them, so that even when they bare their needle teeth, all you see is a friendly smile. The ones that only reveal their utter lack of humanity in the 11th hour, when it’s too late.

Hopefully I’ll be able to teach you enough monster detection, how to spot the glint in it’s yellow eye or the quickest flick of it’s sharp tail. Hopefully one will never enter our lives.

Until then, I’ll keep you safe here. Monsters aren’t allowed in the house, after all.

Why potty training is at a standstill

2010-09-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Me, observing you leaning heavily on the coffee table, red faced and concentrating: "Xander, are you pooping?"

You, grunting: "No!"

Me, not convinced: "Are you sure? Do you want to go sit on the potty?"

You: "MY NOT POOPING!"

Me: "..."

Me, 5 minutes later: "...pee-yew. Let's go change your bum."

So, yeah. You'll be 8 or 9 at this rate.

The dog would have been all over that.

2010-09-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

You and I have taken to visiting the Ranch on Saturdays, while your father works. It gives you something to do and makes my life easy because I don't have to entertain you by myself all day or cook a meal for just the two of us. I'm all about the path of least resistance.

You surveyed your future inheritance and pretended to drive the old cars as per usual, and chased the dog around and then didn't nap. So by dinnertime, you were a little wound up.

Your grandfather is the culinary genius at the Ranch, and he has a definite love of Southwestern fare. He 'imported' several cans of refried beans from Arizona last year, and served some of them tonight with barbecued pork chops and salad.

You weren't interested. You barely glanced at the plate, had two tiny pieces of pork, proclaimed yourself "All full!" and then ran around while the rest of us ate.

I knew you'd be completely uncontrollable if you didn't eat, though, so I pulled you onto my lap in order to ~~force~~ feed you. You finally paid attention to the meal. Including the refried beans.

"Poop!" you shrieked, pointing. "Poop on plate!"

While the your grandparents and I tried valiantly not to dissolve into giggles (we're so mature), I managed to convince you to finish your pork chop. But you adamantly refused the ~~poop~~ refried beans.

Which just proves what I previously suspected: you're already smarter than the rest of us.

Pushing it

2010-09-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

"Xander," I tell you, "No Play-Doh in the living room. Stay in the kitchen, please."

You pause, eyeing me, considering. Then you take another step forward, a big squishy ball of red 'Doh in your hand.

"Xander..." my voice contains a warning note. "Don't go in the living room, I said."

"My not," you reply innocently, your toes lined up where the tile meets the hardwood. "My jus' standin' in the kitchen."

"Barely," I point out. "You're pushing it, kiddo."

****

"Xander, no toy cars in your food, please." I remove the Hot Wheels from your rice and set them down firmly. You pick it back up and skate it around the edge of your plate.

"Xander..." the warning note obviously has no effect.

"My jus' vroomin' him, Mommy," you explain.

"Keep it out of your dinner."

The toy car puts one wheel on a grain of rice.

"If you do that again, the car is going away," I say sternly.

You skim the car over the top of your meal, a milllimetre away from the food. You don't make eye contact, but I see the glint.

"You're pushing it, Xander."

***

"My wanna go on deck," you announce, heading for the door to the front deck.

"No, sweetie, it's too cold out. You don't have any pants on."

You open the door anyway. (Unlock it and open it, so glad you learned how to do that.)

"Xander, I said no. You have to put on pants."

"No! No pants," you protest.

"Well, then, no deck. Close the door."

"My not on deck," you point out. "My jus' standin' here."

"With the door open. Xander, you're - "

"Pushin' it!" you chirp, beaming at me.

...yes. That.

The life cycle of one of your toys

2010-09-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, Grandma and Grandpa had you for the day out at the Ranch, and they took you to the park. There were some older kids there playing with a soccer ball, and when you ran over to ask to play with them, you were rejected. Your disappointment was so evident, your grandmother felt she could make up for it in some way by buying you your own ball for the next time we visited.

(Never mind that you already have, literally, 8 or 9 of your own balls at home. This was a Ranch ball. So just...never mind.)

She presented it to you and you immediately commenced playing with it with the most interested playmate, which happened to be the dog.

That lasted about...7 minutes. Then the dog punctured it.

Amma, is boken! You fix it? Fix it? Put batteries in it?

Sorry, Grandson, it appears to be truly broken. In half, even.

Apparently this made you pull up your shorts in consternation, but undaunted, you declared:

I pay with TWO pieces! One for Xander, one Wiwwum!

...even the dog got bored of that pretty quickly though. I mean, it doesn't bounce or anything.

Solution!

Is a hat! My ball hat!

When channelling one's father can backfire

2010-08-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

You: "I wanna sleep with daddy! I wanna cuddle daddy!"

Me: "Sweetie, Daddy needs more sleep. He worked very late."

You: "I wanna cuddle Daddy I WANNA DADDY EEENNNNNHHH WANNA WANNA!" (weep, wail, gnashing of teeth.)

Me: "Shhhh, sweetie. You'll wake him up, he needs to sleep. Do you want to go out in the yard?"

You: "NO!"

Me: "We could go to the store?"

You: "NO! EEEENNNNNGGGHHHH AAAAAH DDDAAADDDDY!"

Me: "Do you want some strawberries?"

You: "NO!"

Me: "Do you want some toast with jam?"

You: "NO!!"

Me (sigh of exasperation): "Do you want a knuckle sandwich?"

You: "..."

Me: "Well, you-"

You: "I wanna knuckle sandwich."

Me: "Sweetie, that's not a real thing-"

You: "I WANNA KNUCKLE SANDWICH!"

Me: "..."

("Knuckle sandwich" now equals "raisin toast with butter and strawberries" around here. There are SO many ways that could go wrong in the future.)

Non Sequiturs

2010-08-21T20:04:00.001-07:00

You, bursting in on me while I'm peeing, and pointing dramatically: "There no fridge on you!"

Me: "There's no fridge on me?"

You (confidently): "No, there no fridge on you."

Me: "Uh...is there a fridge on YOU?"

You: "There no fridge on Xander."

Me: "Well, that's a relief."

******

Me (as we're getting ready to drive off to the Ranch): "Okay, buddy, we just have to stop for gas and then we can hit the road!"

You: "Hit the road?"

Me: "Yep, after we get gas."

You: "I wuv gas."

Me: "You love gas?"

You: "I want to hold it."

*********

You (while I am pushing you on the swing): "Dere monsters over dere?"

Me: "No, there are no monsters allowed here."

You: "No monsters?"

Me: "Nope, no monsters!"

You: "Dere a baby monster over dere."

Me: "Oh, well, a baby monster, maybe. Baby monsters aren't scary."

You: "I say hi to him?"

Me: "Sure."

You (waving in the general direction of the back gate and just about falling off the swing): "Hiiiiii, Baby Monster!"

Me: "..."

You: "He ticklin' me!"

**********

I will never run out of material, now that you've learned to talk.

Because teaching you made-up stuff is kinda what parenting is all about

2010-08-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

Me, showing you how to use a Play-Doh press: "See, sweetie, you just put the Play-Doh in here, and then you squeeze these parts together, and bbllleaaaaaaaah! The Play-Doh comes out the other side."

You, finally mastering the squeeze: "Blleeeeah!"

Me: "Good job!"

You: "It bleeaah-ing! Look, it bleeaaaah-ing! I bleeaaah-ing it!"

Me: "That's some nice bleeaaah-ing, sweetie."

What you deserve

2010-08-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

This week I realized that I haven't been giving you what you deserve.

We haven't had any success so far in being able to give you a sibling. My body has apparently decided that it's really 55 years old; some reasonably drastic measures have been suggested, and I'm not sure if I want to go that far. I feel like I've been a bit obsessed, though, especially the last few weeks, thinking that you are missing out, you need a brother, you need a sister. You'd have someone to play with! You wouldn't get on my nerves so often if you just had someone to play with!

But the truth is, you wouldn't get on my nerves if I was less irritable, and you'd have someone to play with if I played with you. If I were less obsessed and more fun for you. If I just enjoyed parenting you, instead of phoning it in because I'm busy worrying about what you'll be missing out on if I'm not also parenting some hypothetical sibling.

So, I'm sorry. I hereby to be a better parent, to be more present, to keep my sense of humor when you ask "Whh-hy?" and when you make messes. To be more fun. To pay attention.

(That doesn't mean I'll be bringing home the Kraft Dinner and donuts anytime soon, though, sorry. It just means I'll be more likely to get down on the floor when you ask me to "Pay cars?" for the 40th time that day.)

Good thing I left my heart in NYC, otherwise you would have shattered it

2010-08-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since I got back from New York City, but I've been delayed in posting because, well, I've been trying to woo you back. You, um...didn't seem overly pleased to see me.

I'm not sure if you're doing some kind of passive-aggressive cat-like thing because you were upset that I left you, or if you were just mad that I broke up the Boys Party. But you weren't even swayed by the Weebles I had stashed in my suitcase.

(Note to self: Next time, put all the really good swag in my carry-on and ship the rest.)

You greeted me cheerily enough at the airport, but were much more interested in another kid who was waiting for her dad to de-plane. You screamed and cried when I tried to hug you. Finally I gave up on affection and just tried to get you moving towards the car, but you were really more interested in playing on the conveyor belt and with the other kid.

"Okay, Xander," I called, "say goodbye, we're leaving!"

"Okay, bye!" you sang, waving goodbye...at ME.

Never the "fun" parent, but I'm a great kisser of owies

2010-08-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will set off for the BlogHer conference in New York. This is the longest I've left you, and the furthest I've gone. I will miss you something awful (when I have time), but somehow I think you'll be fine.

Yesterday your father went to the store for something and came home with several packages of Kraft Dinner and a bunch of hot dogs. When I raised an eyebrow at him, he said defensively, "What? These are for me. I'M craving them." Then he unpacked another toy car to add to your growing collection.

I think you probably won't even notice I'm gone.

How I spend 100% of my time with you

2010-07-31T20:53:00.001-07:00

(Concept respectfully borrowed from Becky.)

Brace for Impact

2010-07-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

Today, the following issued forth from your lips at least four times:

"Wh-hy?"

And so it begins.

(Here's some Cute to round out the post.)

I think motherhood has stolen my imagination, my dreams used to be much less literal.

2010-07-26T20:11:00.001-07:00

I had a dream yesterday that I was trying to camp with a friend, and we had a tiny tent we were trying to set up, but there was no room. Everywhere we turned, someone had already staked out their space. We dragged our little tent all over, looking for the smallest area to claim, but there was no room at all.

Then I woke up and realized I'd fallen asleep in your bed again, and you and Pooh were competing to see who could put more limbs over me.

No room at all, indeed.

Ugh.

2010-07-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday you woke up from your nap complaining that your tummy hurt, and it seemed like you might be running a fever (it's hard to tell, since you flat-out won't let me take your temperature). You didn't eat much for dinner but perked up later, and that was that.

Yesterday I remarked to your father, "Does it look like he has a couple of zits on his chin there? What is that?" Your father shrugged.

Today the Daycare Lady called after you'd spent all day there and informed me that she'd just heard from another parent that their child had Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease last week. She thought you might have it too. I looked at the 'zits' more closely, sighed, and dragged you off to the Medi Clinic.

"I go doctor?" you chirped, running around the waiting room. I prayed you wouldn't lick anybody while we were there.

The Medi-zombie flashed a light in your mouth and inspected the two blisters that I hadn't noticed on your hand and informed me that yes, you have it. No, there's nothing we can do about it, but it's highly contagious and we should keep you home for a week. Then he told me I should "try not to touch" you and bolted out the door.

"I feel better!" you announced, jumping down off the exam table.

A week of daycare-lessness and entertaining an otherwise healthy kid without leaving the house? I don't feel so good, myself.

Expectations

2010-07-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

For the last little while, in addition to battling your bedtime, you've been waking up somewhere between 11pm and 1am and screaming bloody murder. Not because you're scared, or because you're sick. You don't want comfort or food or anything from me (other than to leave you alone), you just want to scream and cry for about ten minutes and then go back to sleep. It seems like maybe you're mad that you woke up and you'd like EVERYBODY to know about it.

So obviously, you're just doing it to EFF with me, because it's not like I can sleep through it.

I was telling my woes to your Auntie FoN on Friday and she said, "Have you tried asking him NOT to?"

"Um...excuse me?"

"You know, before bed, just tell him, 'Okay, now you're not allowed to wake up tonight, okay? And if you do, you just roll over and go back to sleep'."

Needless to say, I was skeptical. You don't do anything else I ask you, after all. But I love and dearly miss sleep, so I tried it.

And.

It.

Worked.

Two nights in a row now, although to be fair last night I got up because you weren't feeling well and kind of whimpering. But it sounded like you were trying to 'just roll over and go back to sleep'. You certainly weren't screaming your head off for no apparent reason.

I'm still looking into whether FoN has a 'boarding' option, because obviously she has ALL the answers.

(And I have some sleep.)

I'd think of a witty post title but I'm going to bed.

2010-07-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting this blog, and it's not because you're not doing anything interesting or I don't have anything to say about you. No, you're doing LOTS and I have a hard time keeping up with it all. It's just because I haven't had any time. Normally my "time to blog" is after you go to bed - I have at least a solid hour between your bedtime and mine, but we've been having some Sleep Issues.

They're capitalized because...omg. ISSUES.

It doesn't help that it's summer, so that stupid sun makes you think you want to stay up later. And it's summer, so there is Stuff To Do and we've been sometimes letting you go without a nap. And then you fight bedtime with every fibre of your being because you're overtired? undertired? who knows! And then you sleep poorly because you're overtired? undertired? who knows! And then it's a huge battle to get you up in the morning and out the door to daycare, where you want to fall asleep by 11am and she makes you wait until after lunch and then lets you sleep all afternoon. Which means that by bedtime, you are most certainly UNDERtired, and you are fighting bedtime with every fibre of your being all over again.

Repeat. ad nauseum. For...quite a few weeks now.

Obviously, if you don't sleep well then I don't sleep well, which means we're both crabby. I realized that it was compromising my ability to be a halfway decent parent the other night when, after the third attempt to get you to lay down, and an hour's worth of weeping and wailing and flinging of self on floor, I lost my mind and roared,

"It. IS. BEDTIME!!!"

...so loudly that my throat hurt. You cried harder, probably because I scared the crap out of you. I felt like an asshole, but I also still felt very, very annoyed. After a couple of token attempts at bartering your way out of it, you meekly climbed into bed. I lay down with you, and you fell asleep. It was 10pm.

The next day I instructed the daycare lady to wake you up after 2 hours, no matter what time you fell asleep. Then I re-instated your original bedtime of 8pm and followed up with a bedtime routine of no TV an hour before (I have been slacking on that one and it shows), some reading/painting/playing with cars downtime, a bedtime snack, the brushing of teeth, and then bedtime. No bartering; regular updates on expectations so you don't feel shanghai'd. Y'know, like a real parent.

You've climbed into bed without argument at 8pm for the last 4 nights (with the minor exception of tonight - because I let you nap too late this afternoon - but still, far less drama). Can't be a coincidence, right? Obviously there's something to this whole "parenting" thing.

So, the good news is: you like routine.

The bad news? It's not my forte.

(I'll try to blog before this happens again.)

I didn't even put any soap in there!

2010-07-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

Explain to me how this kind of glee at the water park...

...relates to the flailing, kicking, screaming, unholy FIT you throw when it's time to take a bath?

I'd blog, but you won't let me get a word in edgewise

2010-06-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

Every day you say something I want to write down here, and every day I forget, or run out of time. Or - oddly, since I write this as a letter of interest to you - I don't think anybody else will be interested. So I need to start doing that more often.

Your language has exploded in the last few weeks and every day you say about 5 things that surprise me. But the things I love the most is the random associations you come up with. (Is being a toddler like being high, all of the time? How old are we when we start filtering that stuff out?)

The other day you spotted a soccer net when we were walking through a park. "Soccer ball, soccer ball!" you cried happily, and ran toward the net.

"Where soccer ball?" you demanded when you realized there was no ball with the net.

"I don't know, bud. I don't think this net has a ball," I replied. You pointed to a nearby garbage can.

"Ball in garbage can," you stated confidently. And logically, I guess, since it was the only place in the vicinity in which a soccer ball might be hiding. There's a soccer net, right? Therefore there must be a soccer ball.

It's not always as easy to follow your logic, though. You stole a corn husk from me once while I was cooking dinner, and started playing with it. I don't know why the corn husk was more fun than the eight billion toys that you already possess, but there you go. The corn husk was "Fying, fying!" and "Jupping, jupping!". And when I suggested that maybe it was time for the corn husk to hit the compost bin, you flung it on your back and galloped away like a horsey.

"It riding me!" you exclaimed with glee.

Well. Can't really throw out a foodstuff with proven equine skills, now, can I?

(Can't wait to see what comes out of your mouth tomorrow.)

It might get old around the 5-year mark

2010-06-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

You've entered this really needy phase in which you won't allow either of us to do anything that doesn't involve paying attention to you. You're perfectly happy to play by yourself - in fact, lots of times you prefer it - as long as one of us is actively watching you play by yourself.

This neediness has manifested itself in other ways too, such as the recent desire to have one of us lay down with you until you fall asleep. When this requirement appeared I complained to your Auntie FoN, because it's kind of time consuming. Your falling-asleep process is long and involved; there is sighing, and flopping around, and murmuring to Pooh, and sitting up. Then more sighing.

"Oh, yeah," she agreed, "Don't start doing THAT."

But...I did. And every time I lay down and look at your peaceful face, I realize that you might be IT. You might be my only opportunity to provide comfort to my child, simply by virtue of my presence, while he falls asleep. And when your breathing evens out and you reach out your tiny fingers to gently twine them in my hair, it's worth it.

(When I wake up at midnight, cramped and cold from falling asleep in a toddler bed...not as much.)

If you'd sprayed my camera, I'm sure I would have missed you after I shipped you off to Siberia

2010-06-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend your grandmother took me on a much-needed retreat, to a photography workshop. I expected to miss you terribly, and I probably would have got the chance to, if someone hadn't been asking me every half hour or so:

"So, do you miss your little guy?"

You didn't miss ME at all - even a solid three days with your father hasn't knocked the shine off. Hero worship is a powerful thing. But I'm not offended, and I made up my absence to you anyway by having a little photo session while you were playing in the front yard.

At least, until you turned the hose on me.

A mother's guilt has it's limits.

Coversation with the babysitter

2010-06-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

Me: So how did it go?

J: It was good, although Xander is starting to get harder to put to sleep. He used to be so easy, and now he’s in this “NO!” phase.

Me: Yeah, well, he’s two. That's kind of how that goes. Did you get him down eventually?

J: Yeah, but I had to stop playing with him and give him the silent treatment first so he knew we were done playing and it was time for bed.

Me: How did that go over?

J: Not very well. He threw poo at me.

Me: What??!!

J: Oh, no! He threw Pooh at me. His bear.

Me: Oh, thank goodness. I might have had to give you a raise.

This must be your Yellow period

2010-05-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

The other day we were outside, drawing on the sidewalk. Last summer you watched, enthralled, while I drew shapes and letters and numbers for you to name. This summer, you are more determined to do it yourself.

"Mommy!" you proclaimed, after drawing 3 yellow lines.

"Oh, that's Mommy?" I replied. You nodded.

"Zandah!" you declared the next scribble.

"Oh, that's Xander?" I repeated, amused. You nodded again.

"...in a spaceship," you clarified.

Oh. Well, of course. I should have seen that.

(How do I get a spaceship?)

On lying.

2010-05-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

The topic this week over at Perpetua's ControverSundays is lying. And, as with most things, I can see both sides of the coin. I could argue both parts of the equation. With lying, especially, there are many shades of grey. How else would our legal system work?

(I think I better firm up my opinions before you're a teenager, or you're going to be talking me into tattoos and dirtbikes.)

I do understand why parents occasionally lie to their children, or are untruthful by omission. Your innocence is fleeting and we feel the sting of your tiny feelings more keenly than we do our own; we just want to protect you. Having said that, I will probably always be unable to lie to you. It's just not in my nature.

I come by this honestly. Your grandmother has told me of how when I, as most children do, went through a phase where I required constant reassurance that she wasn't going to DIE. Absence and the idea that it could be permanent had suddenly occurred to me. But your grandmother, as much as she wanted to comfort me, couldn't tell me honestly that she wasn't going to die - I mean, she could get hit by a bus the minute she left the house! She had to tell me, "Well, yes, sweetie...someday." Which is extremely unsatisfying when you're four.

Somehow, I survived.

I say I won't lie to you, but that doesn't mean I won't phrase things so that you'll understand them. When you ask me for the thousandth time where the wind comes from, I'll probably say "out of town". When you ask me why you're not allowed to pick your nose, I'll probably tell you "because your head will cave in". (I come by both of those responses honestly as well, by the way.) I don't consider those lying, per se. They're more...translating the truth to fit the circumstances.

Also, we may occasionally be "out" of chocolate ice cream.

Would I lie to you?

What's good for the gosling often gets ignored by the goose

2010-05-18T20:14:00.001-07:00

Summer is here! Yay! And your love affair with the Great Outdoors has not waned at all, so we spent practically all of Sunday and Monday in the backyard.

Naturally, I made you wear a hat. And sunglasses. And I slathered you in sunscreen at regular intervals, and made you drink lots of water and take breaks in the air conditioning.

So how on earth did this happen?

Oh, right. That's MY shoulder.

(Where's the aloe vera?)

Caption This

2010-05-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

...I wonder what you guys were talking about?

And they say women are the contradictory ones

2010-05-11T20:29:00.001-07:00

The other day, you decided you wanted me to play the Nintendo Wii: "Pay wee? Pay wee? Mama pay wee?" You wanted ME to play it, because generally you aren't heavy enough for the board and you get frustrated with the controllers, but you like to watch the screen.

EA Active was in the machine, so I figured I'd attempt an actual workout. Naturally, you got bored with THAT about two minutes in and spent the rest of the time trying to thwart my exercise by trashing the living room while I was distracted.

Later, I jokingly complained to your father via text how hard you had made it for me to complete the workout (despite the fact that you seemed to think I needed to exercise). He replied that you always made it difficult for him, too.

"But it was HIS IDEA!" I protested. To which he replied, "He's more like me than you'll ever know."

I think we need to get you a sister, STAT.

Fur children or furless children, this proves I'm a terrible parent all round

2010-05-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

Ahem. Yes, that's you telling the dog to "zip it".

It's possible that we should be setting a better example, but she's just so damn LOUD.

No, it's MY sanity

2010-04-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't really mentioned that you've basically exploded, verbally. You're a messy explosion of verbosity. It's very cool and I'm really proud, even when you're stringing together sentences like, "Mom, out my room!"

(Already. I thought that would wait until you were a teenager. Gah.)

It's also kind of irritating, sometimes, because you repeat everything about 125 times and each time, it begins with "MY".

"My sippy cup? My sippy cup? My blue sippy cup?"

"Yes, sweetie, that's your blue sippy cup."

"My sippy cup." (Nodding.) "My sippy cup. MY sippy cup. MY BLUE SIPPY CUP."

"Yes, it is."

"My toofbrush? My toofbrush?"

"No, that's Daddy's toothbrush and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate you sticking it down the drain."

"My toofbrush?"

"Daddy's."

(After a pause.) "Daddy's toofbrush?"

"Yes, that's right, Daddy's toof, er, toothbrush."

"Daddy's toothbrush! Daddy's toothbrush! MY TOOTHBRUSH!"

"...whatever."

(I won't even mention the conversations we have about "your" boobs.)

So what's up next? "Why"?

Can't wait.

Spring is here.

2010-04-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

Thank goodness.

Vignettes in the theme of Pooh

2010-04-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

This week you seem to be fighting an ear infection, so before I took you to daycare yesterday I offered you a hat. You have one that we both love, me because it has ear flaps, and you because it has a puppy face on it. Obviously, this is your "woof hat".

"Can I put your woof hat on?" I offered.

"No!" you said adamantly. "No woof hat!"

Then you picked up your floppy Pooh bear and put him on your head.

"Pooh hat," you informed me, with a grin.

Well, sure. Why didn't I think of that?

***

The other night you woke up crying, and I traipsed sleepily into your room. What would you like? A bum change? A different shirt? Are both your socks on? Did your Pooh bear fall out of bed? Did your Baby Pooh bear fall out of bed?

A drink? Ah, a drink. I went and filled a sippy cup with water and brought it to you. You took your prize and cradled it.

"'Ank you, Mommy," you said blearily, and rolled over.

And I glowed. I have no idea what part of that touched my heart so profoundly - the 'Mommy', which never gets old? The 'thank you', or the fact that you used it unprompted in the proper context? That you seemed genuinely appreciative that I dragged my butt out of bed to get you a glass of water?

(Shut up, I can have my delusions until you can speak clearly enough to shatter them.)

***

Every day you go to daycare, your Pooh entourage goes too. This includes Big Pooh, Baby Pooh, and occasionally Other Baby Pooh.

(Once again, I have no idea how you ended up with all these Pooh bears. I only know the origin of Big Pooh, who sports the year of your birth on his foot and prompts almost everybody who sees him to say, "Well that bear is...well loved.")

And almost every day that I pick you up, I get a Pooh-related story. How you play house with the Poohs and one of the girls, how you prop Big Pooh up in the high chair and feed him, how you hide him in the playpen or the bed. Yesterday, one of the girls was feeling under the weather so you gave her Pooh for comfort.

Somehow, I think that when you move on to Transformers or Bakugans or whatever, it's not going to be nearly as endearing.

Super size me, indeed

2010-04-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

We don't go to McDonald's, or Burger King, or any of those places. Sorry. I'm sure that at some point you'll feel really deprived by this, but in the long run you'll thank me. Your father had the bad habit of picking up McDonald's drive-thru after his night shifts, but I've almost ~~beaten it out of him~~ got him convinced it's not a good idea. And see, he thanks me.

At least I think that's what he's muttering.

Anyway, this evening was one of those times we get kicked out of the house by the cleaners, and though we took you for a slightly-more-nutritious meal elsewhere, we still had a lot of time to kill. I thought it probably wouldn't condemn our souls if we got you a cone, and me a coffee, and let you climb around on that giant play thingie that the Ronald so kindly provides. Except then I saw how many people were actually AT McDonalds (really? Do people actually "dine in" there?) so I thought maybe we'd get a cone and a coffee and go to the park.

So we zipped through the drive-through and got our goods.

Jeebus. Can't imagine why the nation is overweight.

The gap between siblings, or rather, whether it's a "gap" or a "full stop"

2010-03-28T14:55:00.001-07:00

You might have noticed that you don't have a sibling. Or not, I don't know, you seem to feel that the dog is your sister. Will you be okay with that in the long run? I don't know, but I hope you are if it comes to that.

After you were born, I wasn't sure if I wanted to have another baby. I mean, it sucked. A lot. There were a lot of things about our "birth experience" that were not optimal, and that could potentially rear their ugly heads if we decided to have another kid. Or not - pregnancy is strange that way. But your father was more than sure that he didn't want to watch me go through all that again; I, at least, had something to do for most of it, he just had to stand by and watch me (and subsequently, you) suffer. As far as we were concerned, only crazy people had another kid straight away.

But last year I started thinking that yes, I wanted you to have a sibling. I have one, your Crazy Uncle Darcy, and your father has a sister. Both of us, your father and I, are about 3-1/2 years apart from our own siblings. Crazy Uncle Darcy and I were default play companions during our childhood, not so close as teenagers, and get along famously as adults (albeit infrequently). I started to feel that it was important for you to have that childhood playmate, that one person who truly understands the particular brand of insane your parents inflict on you. And maybe that one person who will be a shoulder for you to lean on when your parents are old and really nuts.

Unfortunately, about the same time my body began behaving rather strangely. Strange, as in, "not conducive to planning pregnancies". I went to my doctor and received a rather dire diagnosis, which cemented my desire to have another baby. Like, NOW.

Your father, surprisingly, agreed. He said he'd been talking himself into it, too. I just hadn't been around for the conversations.

Sadly, we are still baby-less. In my head, in my ideal timeline, I'd be giving you a sibling in the next few months, or maybe around the 3-1/2 year old mark, mirroring my own experience. (I'd like you to be out of diapers, maybe. Do you think you could work on that?) I'd be bloated and complaining of heartburn right this instant. But it's not looking...fecund, shall we say.

And, perhaps this is selfish of me, but I don't want to be waking up 5 times a night to feed a newborn when I'm 40. There is a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity here.

So, sweetie, we really want to give you a little brother or sister to torture. But you might have to make do with the dog.

(At least she's easier to replace.)

(Oops, did I say that out loud?)

Posted in conjunction with ControverSundays over at Perpetuas.

Normally I ignore you for much more valid reasons. Like blogging.

2010-03-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much to say this week because of this:

The dreaded bathroom renos. My wish for you, my son, is that you never have to deal with them.

(But look! You're "helping"!)

You couldn't have just stuck with inheriting his height and good looks?

2010-03-15T14:27:00.001-07:00

In addition to your escape attempt at daycare on Wednesday, and your Exorcist impersonation on Friday, yesterday you decided you'd put the cherry on top by touching the stove element and burning the crap out of your finger. Once again your poor father had to deal with the incident (you apparently reserve the bodily fluids for me, thanks for that), which stressed him out immensely, though I suppose there's the cold comfort that you probably won't do that AGAIN.

So that's a lot of excitement for one week. That means you're done for a while, right? Right?? Or is your heritage becoming more apparent?

Your grandmother, you see, has been going on for years about how your father was such an accident-prone child, trying to run before he could walk, endangering himself and everything around him. My internal reaction when she starts these stories has been either, "Oh, well, all children are like that," or "I guess you were a pretty inattentive mother then," depending on how charitable I'm feeling. But your father, does, in fact, have a fairly dented skull and bears the marks of many other injuries. So I guess it's possible that he's just one of those people, and that you might be too.

Later in the evening yesterday I noticed that our end table wasn't at its usual angle and was pressed against the wall. I made a comment, assuming that you had pushed it aside while playing.

"No, I did that," said your father. "He kept trying to get at the outlet, and I figure electrocution is probably next on his list, so I'm just hedging our bets."

I kind of laughed a little.

But I left the table where it was.

Things are always seem better after retail therapy

2010-03-13T12:32:00.001-08:00

Perhaps in reaction to the tension this week, at 4am yesterday your stomach decided to reverse gears. There were two encores to the performance, so we stayed home from work and daycare, and did a lot of laundry.

You could keep down liquids so I wasn't unduly worried. And you did have more energy than you would if you were on your deathbed. Still, it was a crappy end to a crappy week and I'm glad you seem fine today. Maybe you were cracking a molar? I don't know, you won't let me look in your mouth, normally I have to trick you into that by holding you upside down and tickling you, and I'm certainly not looking to be doused in your lunch again.

Anyway, after all that I forgot to mention the hat that arrived for you on Thursday. I ordered it from the lovely Lisa's etsy store, So So Belle Boutique. Isn't it adorable?

Then again, that might be the model.

This part of parenting wasn't in the "What to Expect" manual

2010-03-11T06:10:00.000-08:00

"So, um, Paul was quite upset when he got home last night," I begin. I don't say that your father burst through the door, thrust you into my arms, and bolted into the living room to break down.

"Oh, and I don't blame him!" Daycare Lady replies breathlessly.

"Xander wandered out into the back alley, and Paul found him in the neighbours yard?" I deliver it to sound like a bit of a question, which it is not. It's an accusation.

"I'm just sick about it. I feel terrible. I hardly slept at all last night."

"Yeah, well...I'm not really clear on how that happened," I say.

"I don't know, I was helping get another girl ready to go, and he was right there on the steps. And I told him to stay there, but he must have followed the older girls into the back to get icicles. I'm not making excuses, but they're not supposed to go back there. It's blocked off now. We blocked it off," She looks like she might cry. I still feel like I might punch.

"Well, the problem is, he's fearless," I offer, willing to shift a tiny bit of the blame. But not much.

"Thank God nothing happened. In 25 years, a kid has never left my yard. Thank God," she says fervently.

"Yes," I agree, though it seems inadequate. Probably I should be thanking God, too.

We have the same conversation, 3 times over, with the same subtext.

I'm angry. I'm scared. I trusted you with my precious child. What happened?

I know. It was an accident. I have no excuse. I feel terrible.

Thank God nothing happened.

Thank God.

Thank God.

"It's okay," I finally say, and hug you goodbye. You run off merrily to play with your friends, barely a glance back, completely oblivious of the fear and guilt you put your parents through.

I get into the car, and burst into tears.

Just imagine yourself as a doctor or something, okay?

2010-03-09T19:26:00.000-08:00

Oh, hai, yes, right, I have a blog! I should write you stuff, and things.

I'm kind of afraid that this is going to happen a lot as you keep getting older, and time keeps speeding up, and suddenly you're in kindergarten and graduating high school and whatever happened to all those letters I was going to write, the pictures I was going to take? I mean, obviously, I don't want to be so busy documenting our life that I forget to live it, but there must be a balance there.

I'm not sure what that balance is right now, so I'll just share my Cute Xander Story of the week:

You have developed an imagination, which is both awesome and terrifying. Awesome because, how cool is it that you can't even form whole sentences yet, but you can spent 20 minutes attempting to convince me that there are "noisy dinosaurs" outside on the deck. Dinosaurs, Mama, dinosaurs! Noisy!

Noisy dinosaurs, Xander?

Ya, you nod with a mischievous smile, dinosaurs.

Then I feed you Tuna Helper for dinner and you use the macaroni noodle as a tiny phone. "Heyo?"

I love this newfound imagination because, well, it's fun and you might end up being an artist like me. It's also terrifying because, well...you might end up being an artist like me.

Also, how long til the noisy dinosaurs are scaring the crap out of you at 1am?

Nerds ahoy

2010-03-03T19:36:00.000-08:00

You have this game, that your father has mostly encouraged in you, that involves rolling dice. And, well, that's about it. You like to sit at your little kid's table with one of us and roll it over and over, shouting random numbers.

I'm willing to overlook the potential future in gambling because it seems like a good way to teach you numbers. You haven't really caught on to the concept of counting things, however, so a bunch of dots is kind of lost on you. You have been learning numbers at daycare, though. Today you were rolling your dice and bellowing, "Sixteen!"

"I don't think your dice says sixteen," your father told you, amused.

"He's been doing that all day," I explained.

"Looks like it's time to get him his first D20!" announced your father.

Oh boy. I'll be sewing you a tiny Renaissance Fair costume next.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the restaurant

2010-02-24T18:01:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we joined your father for dinner before he started work. We do this every couple of weeks, while the cleaners are ~~saving my sanity~~ doing the house. You were being particularly patient and charming, especially considering you were trapped in a high chair past your dinner time.

I noticed a woman across the way watching you. She would smile to herself, as you sang out your letters and numbers, or became enthralled with a ketchup bottle or an ice cube. Then she would look across at her own two surly teenaged boys, both enthralled only with their cell phones.

I thought, I wonder if I can find some kind of injection that will freeze you at this age?

Which was quickly followed by - I bet her two boys can get dressed and take care of their own poop and go to bed without a 45 minute song and dance. Never mind.

I'm fine with sitting across from a toddler in a restaurant one day, remembering.

Our vaccination choices, or, why you might break out into itchy red spots at some point

2010-02-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

So, ControverSunday this week at Perpetua's place is about vaccinations. (I realize it's Monday. Get used to that.) Like last week, it occurred to me that I should maybe explain to you why we did what we did. The good news is, you're not going to die of TB or lose the use of your legs to polio. But you might get the flu, and you might get to stay home trying desperately not to scratch.

I find it hard to be controversial sometimes, not because I don't have opinions but because I often don't feel qualified to defend them. So I just don't say anything loud-mouthed, and I've mostly adopted a "live and let live" policy. It's not that I feel I didn't do my research, but I'm always sure I could do more. And I'm always sure that someone who HAS done more will come along to pick apart my motivations.

Essentially, I do enough research to feel comfortable with the choice I've mostly already made. I make most of the decisions regarding this familys welfare from a deep-seated belief that our planet is growing increasingly toxic, both physically and socially. So I try to strike a balance between "loading up on chemicals and brain-destroying television" and "not being exposed to enough of the world to be able to navigate it later on". We watch television, but not too much. I buy organic produce, as much as possible. I let you eat food dye and refined sugars - as treats. Etc., ad nauseam.

Which brings us to vaccinations, and what we chose. Well, what I chose. I think your father was happy enough to leave that up to me, as long as it wasn't too radical.

You have most of your vaccinations, and most of them on time. Anything that was likely to kill you or maim you for life? I got you vaccinated for. I probably wouldn't have vaccinated you for measles or mumps, but they came packaged with rubella (German measles), which can be horrifying for pregnant women. You're around a lot of pregnant women, it seems, so frankly I didn't want that responsibility. Also, while I survived mumps just fine as a child, in boys it can cause sterility, so there was that as a deciding factor as well.

I didn't get you vaccinated for the seasonal flu, and I didn't get you vaccinated for chicken pox. Those seem optional, to me. Illness sucks, but the natural immunity you'd get from suffering through FAR outweighs the benefits you might receive from the vaccine. In my mind, your immune system is not going to be terribly efficient if you don't give it a workout now and then.

(I also let you fight off infections sometimes instead of just dashing off to the antibiotic dispenser, er, the clinic. I know, I'm a horrible mother.)

The chicken pox vaccination is relatively new, which makes me nervous. When I took you in for your first round of shots, I had this conversation with the health nurse while she was going over your proposed schedule of shots:

Her: "So MMR at 2, 4, and 6 months...blah, blah...and chicken pox at 1 yr."

Me: "Okay. We're going to opt out of the chicken pox shot."

Her (slightly offended): "Why? Everybody gets it. He's not going to catch the wild virus anywhere these days."

Me: "Oh. Well, how long has it been offered?"

Her: "Just over 2 years. But it's been administered in China for over ten."

Me: "Um...ok...and what have the results been in China?"

Her: "Well, people have been needing a booster. But we have a much better vaccine."

Me: "But you don't know how long it will last, because you've only been giving it for 2 years."

Her: "It's anticipated that it will last more than the ten years."

Me: "But you don't know."

Her: "..."

Me: "So I can either get him the vaccine, which may leave him exposed as an adult, or I can not give him the vaccine, hope he catches the 'wild' virus which would give him life long immunity, though if he doesn't he could still get the vaccine as an adult."

Her: "...well, you have a year to think about it."

(When you were a year, I went in ready to fight the good fight, but got a different health nurse who clearly didn't give a crap what we opted out of.)

However, with the H1N1 flu scare this year (which turned out to be such a non-issue, really, that you'll probably be scratching your head and looking that up on wikipedia), I found myself very conflicted. I really thought it was blown out of proportion, that the media was feeding into Big Pharma's scare tactics designed to sell us a bunch of over priced vaccines.

But at the same time, scare tactics can be effective, and pervasive. I researched compulsively, and asked endless questions of my epidemiologist friend. And when someone at my job announced they'd been stricken with the H1N1, I panicked and sent your father down to the vaccination clinic to get you immediately stabbed in the arm.

But I didn't send you for your booster.

Stickin' it to the MAN, I am.

Here's hoping you inherit my love of sports

2010-02-19T07:59:00.000-08:00

Xander translations:

"Oash!" = "snow"

"Toes!" = "I'm not really sure what you want from me so I'm going to point out my digits! Aren't I clever?"

"Ah shit!" = "Wash it" (I swear! You're a very clean child. Except that you insist on wearing the same jeans and t-shirt for days, so you kind of smell like a hobo. But otherwise, very clean!)

"Eye it?" = "Try it?", or "I want some of whatever you're having so hand it over, lady."

"Booh nose!" = "I just shoved blue Play Doh up my nose while you weren't looking!"

"Doof ball!" = "Football"

(I totally agree on that last one, little man.)

On television

2010-02-14T13:10:00.000-08:00

I don't generally do 'memes' or other blogosphere-specific stuff here, because that's not really what this letter is about. But Perpetua has started a 'ControverSunday' carnival, posting topics mainly concerning parenting, and I began thinking that I don't often discuss those types of things. I've been using this blog as a letter about you, when really it was meant to be to you.

I'm pretty sure that I won't get hit by a bus or anything soon, but maybe I should address some of these topics so that later you won't have to go through the awkward process of actually asking us why we didn't cloth diaper you, or cut part of your penis off, or let you watch SpongeBob.

Television, coincidentally, is what this week's carnival is about. That could be interpreted a variety of ways, but obviously I'm going to talk about it as it pertains to you. And like most things, I started out on the far left hippie side of the "whether or not my child should watch television" issue, and gradually gave ground until now we're at something closer to the middle of the road.

I am pretty firm in my belief that if you are watching television, that it at least be educational and age-appropriate. You watch a lot of PBS in the mornings - probably more than I'd like sometimes, but as I may have mentioned I can tend towards laziness - with the occasional foray into Treehouse territory. Mostly, I try to stay away from the 'branded' stuff that runs a thousand advertisements. Because the longer I can avoid the "But I WAAAANNNTTT it!" fight at Wal-Mart, the better.

I try to get you to interact, rather than just zoning out ("What color is that? Is that an A? Dance with the Backyardigans!"), although sometimes zoning out is just in the cards. And sometimes I have to do the dishes. I always make you stop watching at least half an hour before bedtime, if it's on. Someone explained to me once that your little brain keeps processing images a long time after your eyes have received them, so watching television (or playing on the computer) can be detrimental to your sleep patterns.

(Which can be detrimental to MY sleep patterns. This is all pretty much about me.)

Anyway, that's where we fall on the TV-watching scale. I don't stick to any hard and fast rules, but I think we're pretty much dead centre (including at daycare, where you only watch about an hour a day). I'd like to stay there. I think it's a good balance between "fat zoned-out couch potato" and "weird kid who doesn't understand any pop culture references"*.

(Sorry, Perpetua, I'm not very controversial.)

*I may or may not have been this kid myself.

Bowing to convention

2010-02-08T07:29:00.001-08:00

I guess you can't be my little hippie child forever. Before:

After:

(You hated getting it cut as much as last time. And your father, who was the main reason for the change, called you a Young Republican. I just can't win.)

This will only work until it doesn't

2010-02-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

Me: "Sweetie, you want to have a bath?"

You: "No bath!"

Me: "Okay."

(five minutes later)

Me: "How about a bath? With bubbles?"

You: "No bubbah bath!"

Me: "Okay."

(five minutes later)

Me: "How about that bath?"

You: *completely ignores me*

Me: "Okay."

(five more minutes later)

Me: "Should we go upstairs?"

You: "Bath? Bubbah bath?"

Me: "You want to have a bath?"

You: "Bath!" *gallops joyously up the stairs*

Me: "Oh, well...if you insist."

Next she'll be telling you it's okay to stay up past 8 and drink bleach

2010-01-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

For Christmas someone who shall remain nameless gave you ~~Satan's toy~~ a very small Play-Doh kit. I immediately established Rules Regarding Play-Doh, which are 1) you can only play with it in the kitchen, 2) you can only play with one color at a time, and 3) no, you can't eat it.

That last one has been rather difficult to enforce as one of the two colors you received was orange. "Cheese?" you say, holding it close to your mouth. "No, sweetie, it's not for eating," I tell you.

To which you give me a look like, you are LYING woman, it's clearly cheddar, and reply, "Cheese?"

I'm tempted to let you taste it just so you know it's not cheese, but though it's labelled non-toxic, what the hell makes it smell like that? Nothing in nature, that's what.

So you were playing with it, safely at the kitchen table, the other night and the dog had assumed her position with her face directly underneath your chair. Lest you drop any interesting tidbits. We had just finished the "Cheese?" exchange, and then you accidentally dropped your clump of orange Play-Doh.

Whereupon the dog immediately snarfed it up. You gave me a look of betrayal that said, Liar! You said it was not for eating and now it's GONE!

Just what I need. Someone ELSE undermining my authority as a parent.

First guitar lesson

2010-01-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

(Mostly you like the guitar picks. And hiding them. Your father has been reduced to using Pogs.)

Communication barriers have been breached, cap'n

2010-01-19T19:56:00.001-08:00

You've started to enter the phase where you have some definite preferences, but you can't quite communicate them. And so there is a lot of frustration on both sides, until we manage to guess what it is you want, or you're able to somehow show us.

This morning you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, too early, and were annoyed that I greeted you rather than your father. You got really upset, and I had no idea what you wanted. Which made you even more hysterical, which makes you even harder to understand. You see how this goes.

You shrieked and flailed and cried and pointed and repeated something nonsensical, until finally your father got up. I had to get ready for work so I went to shower, and he took over the task of trying to decipher your wails.

I heard you screaming pretty much the whole time, until I emerged from the bathroom. You seemed happier. Apparently, I'd taken your jeans off because you'd wet through your diaper (wearing jeans to bed is one of your 'preferences') and when your father brought you another pair, you said sternly, "Pooh!"

In other words, you woke up mad and threw a 20 minute tantrum because Pooh didn't have any jeans on.

Well. I mean, of course. How OBVIOUS is that?

Sometimes I wonder how you can stand having dummies like us as parents.

I wonder if Pampers makes chastity belts

2010-01-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

Today I picked you up at daycare and the daycare lady announced that she'd interviewed another kid today, a 27 month old girl.

"And oh! He was completely in love!" she enthused, beaming at you.

"A girlfriend, eh?" I eyed you suspiciously. (You gave me a rakish grin and continued eating snow.)

"And she didn't want to leave, she was having so much fun with him! They were so cute! She starts Monday."

Hmmph.

Hussy.

The best use of old Christmas wrap I've ever seen

2010-01-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

You've developed this interest in tracing your body parts. I blame daycare, since I haven't done that since you were about 8 months old (plus you came home with some kind of craft that involved traced images of your hands). You trace hands, feet, and sometimes you put your head or lips on the paper and try to trace those too.

So today your father unrolled some of the leftover Christmas wrap and traced your whole body so you could see. Then he hung them up and let you color them.

...and he says I'M the creative one.

Temporary

2010-01-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

I've been composing this post in my head for quite a while. It's not something I've ever heard another mother talk about, precisely. Possibly I'm giving you evidence to have me committed, later, when it's more convenient and you don't need me to wipe your butt and cut your toast into quarters.

I always feel like you are only here temporarily.

I suppose it is probably because you change SO MUCH, practically daily. You reinvent yourself at an alarming rate, learning, absorbing, becoming. I'm struggling to keep up with what kid I'm parenting, day to day. How am I supposed to begin to imagine you in the future? Maybe when you're a little older, your personality is a little more developed and consistent, I'll be able to picture attending your graduation or what you might be interested in taking in university.

But in my darker moments I feel like some awful prophet, like you really might NOT be here for long.

Does this stop me from getting impatient with you, from just wanting 5 minutes without your tiny hands pulling at my sweater so I can get the goddamn dishes done, from wanting another 5 to sit and drink a cup of coffee or read a comic? No. But it does make me grin extra foolishly when I'm watching you play, or break into interpretive dance just because you can. It does make me sneak into your room before I go to bed to make sure you're fine, though you haven't given me a reason to think otherwise. It makes me grab you randomly and squeeze you as tightly as your tiny hand squeezes my heart, because I can't believe how lucky I am.

And maybe that's it, really. I feel so lucky to have you, to have this tiny family. And while I've felt fortunate and prosperous before, I've mostly taken it for granted. It was because I worked hard, was given advantages by my parents, because I asked the right questions or schmoozed the right people. I've never felt like I just lucked into something that I didn't deserve, before you.

I guess I'll just have to work harder at deserving you, so you'll stay.

A momentous occasion. Sob.

2009-12-29T18:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we got you a "big boy bed".

This had less to do with anybody being ready for the transition and more to do with the fact that I got a Christmas bonus and wanted to spend it somewhere useful before I frittered it away on $20 scarfs off Etsy and sushi lunches.

We also got a 42" TV. You're welcome.

I guess you were more ready for the "big boy bed" transition than I'd thought, because you shed not a single tear as your father dismantled your crib. Once we had the bed together, you jumped up and down and chanted, "New! Bed! New! Bed!"

And then you crawled willingly into it at 7:30pm and I didn't hear a single thing out of you until almost nine.

IN THE MORNING.

If I'd known all it took to get a proper nights sleep around here was a New! Bed! I would have put you in one last Christmas.

Still. Kind of dismaying, this whole "growing up" thing you're doing. And you apparently felt so empowered by the extra leg room that this afternoon you announced you were pooping. I suggested you might want to sit on your potty, so off you went.

WOAH, kid. Slow down, okay?

One talking toy per household, please. PLEASE.

2009-12-27T18:26:00.000-08:00

So, Christmas has come and gone. You don't really understand the concept of Christmas or Santa (though you can identify a fat man in a red suit at 50 paces), but you certainly get the concept of PRESENTS. I wish I had trained my camera on you when you entered the living room and saw that glittering pile under the tree, because your expression was priceless.

You got some toys from "Santa" even though you didn't understand, because at the last minute I felt guilty about only getting you clothes. I got you a puzzle and some bath toys, though my original plan was just to let other people buy you the toys. And they did.

Including, from your grandparents (who are clearly punishing your father for some transgression in his youth), a talking Elmo doll. You had almost gotten over your Elmo obsession before this gift. I thought it was smooth sailing with the far-less-annoying Curious George and Pooh. But no. This thing moves, sings, talks, and tells jokes. It can tell when it's fallen over because it asks, "Can you help Elmo up please?" 5 thousand times before heaving a resigned sigh and declaring its intention to nap.

And you love to push it over, of course.

Despite the fact that it's essentially the T-101 overlaid with red fun fur, you insisted on taking it to bed with you last night. I turned it off, obviously; I don't need to lay awake listening to terrible jokes told in the 3rd person and neither do you.

I realized I was screwed either way when your weeping woke me at 4:30am because you couldn't get Elmo to talk. I only figured out what you were so upset about because of our recent Curious George trauma. This time I managed to convince you that Elmo was sleeping, and you should be too, and after I gave you a bottle (yes, yes, I KNOW) you went back to sleep.

Do you think it's terribly inappropriate to call your grandparents at that hour and let them know just how much you LOVE their gift?

I promise after you hung all the ornaments I didn't rearrange them. Much.

2009-12-20T18:08:00.001-08:00