Spring is here

In our house apparently that means that P starts falling out of the bed. Ok well not that it's a regular occurrence. He fell out once just a few nights ago and he's been in a twin size bed with no rails nor pushed up against any walls. There just so happens to be a table beside his bed which he actually climbs on to get in his bed.

I wake up to a thud and crying at that wonderful hour of 3:00am. Let me tell you, I shot out of bed so fast that I launched an 80 pound Lab across the room. I found P on his knees on the floor holding his head and crying. He cuddled right in when I picked him up, we laid back in the bed, dah-ee brought milk, and we went back night-night. It wasn't until morning and time to start the day that I realized there was dried blood on P's ear and pillow. Things are all right; it was only a flesh wound.

Our morning conversation when something like this....

Me: "P, did you fall out of the bed last night?"

P: "Uh-huh. Like this" cue throwing arms above head and head falling back

P (lying on the floor in the same position I found him): "Then I cry like this; wah-ah-ah-ah"

Just like that...he didn't actually cry again he literally said "wah-ah-ah-ah"

I picked him up again and looked at his ear.

Me: "We need to go clean your ear; it was bleeding"

cue shocked expression on 2 year old's face

P: "Ah, my ear" complete with whiny voice and grabbing of wrong ear.

The next night he did not fall out of the bed, but he did show up in the bed with my husband and I at that lovely 0-3:30 hour. When I went to beg him out of bed in a good mood the next morning I thought I would remind him that he was planting flowers with the sitter. (I'm jealous. I had to spend a beautiful day confined to my office while he got to play in the garden.)

He sat up in the bed without a trace of sleep left in his voice:

P: "I dig dirt shovel?" (We really need to work on adding those little things called articles and prepositions)

Me: "Yes you will get to dig in the dirt with your shovel."

P: "Then I pour water down down down?"

Me: "Yes then you can water the flowers"

P: "No no mama. I pour water down"

Me: "Oh ok, you want to pour the water down?"

P (in the teenager duh mom your stupid tone): "Yes (nods head) I  said pour water down"

If he already treats me like I'm just an adult that has no idea what I'm talking about what's it going to be like in 10 years or so?

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Who can resist the silly little colorful caterpillar that Mr. Eric Carle has made so popular. This book was P's choice to read to me tonight. That wasn't a typo; you read it right. P reads to me on occasion. This is how the story went.

For an intro or refresher on what the book looks like; the pages are off set.

P starts with Monday: "hungry"
Tuesday: "hungry hungry"
Wednesday: "'til hungry"
Thursday: "eat hungry"
Friday: "'most done"
Saturday: "whoa, very hungry, hurt tummy"
Sunday: we skip
"fat pillar"
"butterfly!"

If you didn't get the drift of P's story. The caterpillar is hungry so he eats and eats, gets a tummy ache, becomes fat, and then turns into a butterfly. A lot of concentration goes into P's "reading" and by no means should anyone interrupt him. I'm so excited that he likes to read and wants to read to us. I grew up loving to read and I hope that it's being passed down. If his silly stories that he creates by remembering bits and pieces of what I've read to him then I think it's a good sign.

"I fix it"

The dreaded Nuk cup. Transitioning P from a bottle to cup could only be done by introduction of the then lifesaver Nuk Learner cup. Don't get me wrong it's a great cup, but now we have to figure out how to get him off of it. He will not drink milk out of anything else. Water, juice, etc it doesn't matter what cup it's in, but you better not hand him milk in anything but his cup. We used to have 4 then 2. Those things are $7 each at Walmart! To get a new spout costs half that and the spout has to be latex. The silicone splits fast. Now this is not a review of the totally awesome lifesaver of a cup.

P was settled in for a movie last night and I was on the couch finishing a book when I hear him call out, "Cup broke mama; cup broke."

Me: "Your cup is broken? Bring it here, let's see" (I'm thinking that the handles popped off the bottom.

Insert pause....I assume he was getting up but it took him a bit longer than expected.

He hands me his cup, empty of milk, and a tiny piece of green. He bit a chunk off the spout. Now thankfully my son isn't a kid that puts stuff in his mouth and is quick to spit out anything foreign. So here I sit on the couch holding a tiny chunk of latex and a cup with a hole in the spout. This is the perfect opportunity to get rid of the cup. I thought.

Me: "P your cup is broken for good. No more cup. We will have to drink milk out of something else. This one needs to go in the trash."

P (standing quietly and thoughtfully for a moment): "I get tape; I fix it" And he runs to the drawer where we keep the tape.

Logically this makes sense. I mean after all we fix lots of things with tape. Usually the flaps to all those books that managed to become detached. I have to call him off the tape and reason with him.

Me: "Tape won't work this time. How will you drink out of it if there is tape over the spout?"

P: "Oh. No fix it."

Me: "Nope, it's trash"

P: "Ok, I throw 'way" And off he goes with the cup and the chunk to the trash can. I found the cup in the kitchen sink, but I guess he really did throw the chunk away or a dog ate it.

One down, one to go. He's not that clueless. He knew there was another cup and he found it before bed last night. Now the dilemma: do I just toss the cup or do I shell out $3+ w/ shipping for a new spout?

Bigger Now?

A variety of things are tucked under P's bed. Mostly underbed drawers contain extra sheets, blankets, and bags that fulfill my need for a chic diaper tote. In the front corner, tucked against his night stand is a Lite Brite. 

 That's right; that wonderful vintage light up board with holes that make those translucent colored pegs glow in whatever shape you choose. I jumped at the opportunity when a co-worker offered her son's long outgrown version to my son. It is the updated "flat screen" model. In hindsight apparently only the child in me thought this was a good plan. I have almost spilled the tiny little pegs more than once, which is what led to being banished to the darkness under the bed in the first place. As a mother of a little boy what in the world was I thinking! I brought a zillion tiny objects into my house to no doubt plague us with a painful step at all hours of the day and night. It's ok though, because P doesn't go under his bed for anything.

Yesterday afternoon I was attempting to have a bit of quiet time sitting on the couch, when I hear a tiny voice from his room. "Mama, what this?" Now he could have been asking about anything. Usually that question is in reference to a leaf, piece of fuzz, or random dog toy that has been unearthed from who knows where. I enter his room and don't see him. Never a good sign. He's not hanging from the ceiling fan or standing on any shelves/bookcases, then up pops his little head from the otherside of the bed. "Come 'ere" he says complete with his pointed gesture.

Can you guess what I found when I walked to the other side of the bed? You bet! It was the Lite Brite. Only a few pieces had escaped the handy little drawer at the bottom of the new improved version and the button had been pushed so the light was on. "See, what this?" he says with his classic quizzical look.

I'm quick to tell him that it's something he can have when he's bigger, scoop up stray pegs and tuck them away, then start trying to quickly cram the still lit Lite Brite back under the bed. He's worried that it's still lit. I can't make it go off! It's on a darn timer so once it's lit it stays that way for an unspecified amount of time. I get it safely tucked under the bed and the bed skirt pulled back down around it. As I start to find something to distract my unforgetful little boy's mind he looks up at me and back at the bed. "I bigger now?" he asks. "Not quite big enough." I tell him. We go on about our day playing with all sorts of things.

Hours later, I'm leaning towards 4 or 5, I find him sitting again on the otherside of his bed. He knows he's not to touch anything so he looks up at me and assertively tells me "I bigger now." "Not quite big enough," again I tell him. Crisis adverted until another day.

I'm torn between letting him play with it supervised with just a handful of pegs or putting it away somewhere else until he truly is "bigger now." Technically every minute later he is in some way bigger and I wonder if he knows that too.

Potty for a Cookie

I have no idea what I've gotten myself into. I like a few cookies with a glass of milk before bed so I picked up a pack of Double Stuff Oreos on sale. Apparently those are a huge motivator for a 2 year old to go potty more. Don't get me wrong; he's been doing good without much motivation. He doesn't care to be wet so put his little booty in a pair of Buzz Lightyear undies and he is conscious enough to go to the bathroom when he needs to. Since he gets the sitting on the potty and has no issue with it if he doesn't go potty but just sit and stand up he gets no praise.

Along came the cookies. He saw me buy them and he saw me put them in the pantry. He promptly opened the pantry and shoved a chair up to reach the shelf. The cookies now reside on the top of the refrigerator in a colorful bowl and will until the mystery of where the cookies went/come from is discovered by his inquisitive mind.

He asked for a cookie and I asked if he would go potty for a cookie. He said yes and we went to potty. He got a cookie. Yesterday he asks for a cookie. I told him no, he needed to go potty to get a cookie. He said ok and walked off. I walk by the bathroom a few seconds later and there he sits on his froggy potty. I'm impressed because the cookie made him take initiative and go by himself. He had to turn on the light, pull down both pants and undies, and I'm pretty sure he would have emptied his potty and pulled up his pants if I wouldn't have walked by to help. I'm all for independence, but when that independence leads to mommy having to clean up more pee than I would out of a leaky diaper I will be resuming a dictatorship. He got his cookie.

Last night he asked again for a cookie. I told him he had to potty for a cookie and off he went to the bathroom. I followed this time. He finishes, stands up, looks in the potty, looks at me, and says "oops, more". Apparently the amount didn't meet his standards. So he sat again, added a little more, and then was ready for his cookie.

This morning he asks dah-ee for a cookie. Dah-ee tells him he has to go potty and off he goes. I help since I was there anyway. The beauty of having only one bathroom to the 3 of us is knowing that it is going to be occupied by at least 1 of us 90% of the time. As soon as he is done, he jumps up and looks at dah-ee, "Cookie now" he asks in his high pitched excited voice.

We've had cookies since Saturday and he's motivated. Had I known this I would have gotten a less messy cookie or at least Oreo minis because my kid will be potty trained, but hopped up on a sugar high.

Stay and play instead

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday my husband works a 12 hour shift on the ambulance. P knows this and will repeatedly ask him, "amps day" Hey he's trying, heck some adults still say "amblance". Today though he told my husband, "dah-ee, no amps day. Help work with hammer." In his little mind daddy should stay home with him today and apparently work all day with the beloved Handy Manny tools. Pat is of course his favorite.

Either of us would much rather stay home today and help him work on stuff with his hammer, read books, watch movies, build blocks, or play endless games of golf, hockey, or a combination of the two which we will call gockey. It's tons of fun to have a plastic golf club fit for a toddler and whack a plastic golf ball back and forth. Forget a hole when you can have a goal. The boy has one heck of a chip shot.

I wish life could be so simple as just saying ok, P, we will stay home today and do whatever you want. Instead we have to say, no we have to finish getting dressed so you can go to the sitter and mama and daddy have to work today. We will have the whole weekend together though. It's just not the same to spend tomorrow playing as it would have been to spend the day playing and give P what he wanted. Such is life.

And now he's dressing himself....

Today should be a day to wear green. It is after all St. Paddy's Day and we certainly don't want any of the kids at the sitter getting a wild idea to pinch. P decided to dress himself today so we let him. His choices: a red and black t-shirt with a race car on it (no green) and camo shorts (with green, but also brown). I drew the line at his shoe choice: lace up snow boots. He doesn't even want to wear those shoes with jeans on any given day, but all of a sudden that's the shoes he wants. He brought them to me and sat on the floor and that's when I had to break it to my bubbly little man that this just wasn't going to work. I told him that his shoes didn't match (forget the fact that nothing he has on actually matched). Oh I had every intention of putting them on just for the amusement factor and sending him with tennis shoes to the sitter. As I unzipped the first boot he took it from me, "No match, mama, no match." He took his boots and put them back in the closet, dug around for a minute, and picked out.........tennis shoes. Yay! They are black, grey, and orange. Since it was cooler this morning we had to convince him to put on some sweats over his shorts. He left the house wearing: black/red t-shirt, brown/green shorts, navy blue sweats, and black/grey/orange shoes. Ahhh...if this is the start of what's to come I'm going to have to start buying neutral clothes to keep my fashionable mind sane.

I know this post is no good without pictures. If he still has on the same clothes when I pick him up this afternoon I will share his amazing fashion sense.