The Memory Game

As we wind up this year, and I find myself only having written two entries this month, one about each of my daughters on their birthdays, I feel compelled to round it out with an entry about my son.

Ahhhh, my son. Here's a good story. After fighting a horrible flu during late November and early December, I got behind on my holiday shopping. When I was finally feeling up to leaving the house, I suggested to my husband to meet us out for a quick bite to eat after I took the kids to a store, and then we could go by another store afterward. Sounded simple enough.

But the store I went to first was TJ Maxx, which has clothing and housewares. I was there looking for clothing for teenage girls that I was donating to a holiday program. Having no idea what to get them, since I don't know them and don't have any teenagers, it was taking me a while to decide. During my attempt at making a decision, my son was getting restless in the cart. So I let him out and told my oldest to keep an eye on him. I too was watching him. So when they went out of eyesight, I followed, listening for her voice telling him to "go back to mama".

I knew I was headed for trouble when he went straight for the housewares department.

And then I heard it.

The big crash of shattered glass.

At that moment all his never-ending movements stopped. As I approached them on the other side of some shelving, I saw him standing over his mess in amazement.

I'm sure he honestly had no idea that when he threw a little cardboard box he had picked up that it was going to land on a glass martini shaker, knocking it off the shelf and causing these shards of blue and green beauty on the floor.

When you think about it, his life is fun and games. And like most two year olds, he thinks the world is there for his discovery and amusement.

And it is.

But at that moment I didn't much care for his view of life.

I cared about mine. About being that mom that lets her kids run rampant in the store, running about breaking things. I've been a mom for 8 years and this was a new one for me. When you combine "3rd child" with "boy" and "high energy", I'm finding that I'm discovering a lot of new things lately.

So I swept up the pieces with my feet the best I could, and then moved on. No one was there to tell me what else to do. I waited, but no one showed up. So we got the few things I had picked out, got in line, and got out of there. With him crying the whole time until we got outside and I let him back out of the cart.

I guess it had been so long since I'd taken him shopping anywhere besides the grocery store, I'd forgotten my usual tricks. And his usual restlessness.

I find that this is a pretty common occurrence. Time passes and we forget things. Especially things not worth remembering. It's the memory game. We forget the bad stuff and we remember the good. I mean who wants to hold on to all those annoying experiences in life, right? Unless it's traumatic, the chances are you will forget about it in time.

Lately I have been forcing myself to remember the tantrums my oldest had when she was 3 and 4 years old. And 5 years old too. They are starting to fade in my minds eye. But I want to hold on to them long enough to be able to say "this is what kids do when they are this age" whenever my other two do the same things. It's easy to apply sainthood in retrospect.

Just ask my mom. According to her, she had the most well-behaved 3 young children any mom could ask for. She even said this week that we didn't whine when we were kids. Or at least not like my kids whine.

But I remember. I remember one time complaining so much and being such a pain-in-the-ass to her that she didn't let my sister and I go somewhere with her. So we proceeded to cry and tantrum. And we were 11 years old at the time. Around that same time I remember getting into fights with my sister that involved throwing household items at each other, like hangers and scissors.

We were not all sugar and spice. The truth is we weren't perfect children. But we were children. And kids do some pretty crazy stuff as they explore the world and where they fit into it.

I've referred to my son as that kid many a time, and he certainly has those traits that put him in that category. But after these holidays, when all I seemed to hear about him was criticism from relatives, or the more gentle descriptions of "special" and "high energy", I feel the need to get my mama bear face on.

He is all of those things. And he's also a lot more. When you spend some time with, especially one-on-one, you see that he's also sweet and loving, very smart, and he can be more of a "controlled energy" type of kid. He has learned to behave within limits; he doesn't run away from you snickering when out in public, he doesn't approach strangers, he doesn't bite or hit other kids (at least not on purpose), he holds hands when crossing the street.

It is true that when he's in a crowd, he feeds off the energy and makes himself heard.

But more importantly, he snuggles and hugs, laughs and smiles, and runs around having fun.

So we'll continue playing the memory game. Knowing that, like many of us, his best years are yet to come.

And he too will achieve sainthood in retrospect.

Non-Stop Fun

Yesterday morning I attended the first official school function of the year. It was a "coffee chat" with the principal and PTA. How it works is the aforementioned folks "host" a little gathering, complete with coffee and breakfast munchies, for each grades' parents at the school. Yesterday was the one for the first grade parents, which happens to be the entering grade at our school (that's another story about the Kindergarten process, so don't ask).

While my daughter is now a 2nd grader, which I'm still marveling at, I went as a representative of the PTA, since I'm on the Board this year. I really wasn't looking forward to it too much, other than the opportunity to have a cinnamon roll and another cup of coffee. I didn't even go to the one last year for 1st graders, namely because I'm not really one for sitting around and socializing with a group of relative strangers. I prefer to meet people in a smaller setting, like through the classroom activities. So this was literally my first "coffee chat" and I was focusing more on the coffee than the chat.

This event is timed to start after the bell rings for class to start in the morning so it's fairly early. And I figured I was taking my younger two along because it just seemed silly to have my husband stay home an extra hour for something that was so informal.

I had to wrestle my two younger ones into the car, after five rounds of "get dressed" to my four year old, and a couple of rounds of "let's brush your teeth", and a few more of "pick out your shoes". I swear, if I could take my 4 year old out in her pajamas with bed-head hair and her teeth not brushed, not to mention nothing in her belly except chocolate milk (since she has to be practically coerced into eating breakfast), I'd be the one parent that was early for everything. I'd have people marvelling at my ability to get to events and meetings on time with 3 small children.

At least until they got a look at my kids, and then they'd give me the passive aggressive "she likes to pick out her own clothes, huh?" as they roll their eyes behind my back.

So we finally manage to get to the school and do our perfunctory 5 minute wait for a parking space as the lot clears out a little. By the time I roll in there with my son in the stroller and my daughter dragging behind, the PTA President is already giving her spiel. And just then she starts to introduce the officers.

Sweet. Just in time.

I take my kids around to the other side of the room to get some food as she's rolling off the names. By this time my son is already saying "OUT!" to get out of his stroller. Of course we are in a large gymnasium-like auditorium and his voice is way overpowering the lovely lady trying to speak to the crowd. She names all the officers in front of her and says "am I missing anyone?", at which point I raise my hand to be acknowledged. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I just dragged my ass, and two little behinds, here for this very reason so I wasn't going to let the opportunity for due credit pass me by.

"Just us over here, the loud ones," I say to the crowd. I get a few giggles and my due acknowledgement.

After this point my son is not wanting anything to eat, nor is my daughter, so I let them go play in the courtyard outside some glass doors while the Principal of the school starts to talk.

Now all the talk I've heard so far isn't really very critical to me. I've been at the school for a year, so I'm fairly familiar with it's workings. I don't really need to be reminded about the parking lot fiasco, or urged to volunteer for things, since that's why my ass is in the room to begin with. So at this point I already start planning my exit.

Just then my son runs back over to the glass doors and screams "MOM! COME OUTSIDE!!" over and over again while banging on the door. This scene is a bit reminiscent of that scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman is banging on the church windows yelling "Elaine!" for his beloved to stop her wedding. It sort of had the same stunned reaction too.

So I go out and keep my kids company for a bit to keep them quiet. I'm looking in at the Principal talking as if I can hear her, but I really can't hear a thing through the glass. But I figure this way I'm covered if anyone is watching me and I'll at least look the part. I even nod my head a few times just for show.

Meanwhile my kids run around behind me like monkeys at the zoo. It's really what it felt like, even though we were the ones outside and the other side of the glass was the inside. They are running, falling, laughing, and generally having a ton more fun than anyone inside the meeting.

At one point my daughter is standing on a bench and I do the casual "honey, hop down from there, I don't want your brother to get the idea that he can climb all over the benches." So she "hops" down. I realized as I said it that I was probably in trouble.

"Ooooh. I do dat!! I jump!" is what I hear next and he proceeds to get up and jump down off the bench a few times before I can pull him away. Then I try to re-enter the meeting and realize that I'm locked out. I have to quickly divert to a different set of doors through the community center so that we can change scenery and stop jumping off of and climbing over objects.

Now we end up inside at a couple of vending machines. While they are drooling over all the goodies I sneak back inside to listen a little bit more. I hear my kids just outside the room with my son's loud "I WANT DAT!" over and over. So I offer a little what-can-you-do? shrug when some parents look over at me and try to listen intently to the meeting.

Nope, still nothing too critical happening in there. So I grab some more coffee and food for myself and check on the kids who are still excited about the vending machine.

Now I deem it time to go. Enough is enough with the pretending to actually attend a meeting stuff. I go back and grab the stroller from the room just as I hear the principal recommending early bedtimes for grade schoolers.

Check. I have that covered.

And we exit. Whew. 20 minutes of non-stop action and now I can taste freedom.

This is where the "but" comes in. But then, after getting our vending machine goodies, my son runs out to play in the school courtyard on other side of the room we were in. Again, outside some glass doors, so all his craziness can be witnessed by multitudes of other parents. And to top it off these doors are open with people gathered around them since it's where we entered the room.

My son runs around in circles a few times and then leads another woman's cute little innocent and quiet 2 year old all the way across the courtyard, where he climbs up on a concrete wall and begins to walk around with his little buddy right behind him. I hear the mother gasp as she sees what her son has done, and I look up to see my guy leading the pack.

Oops.

Now he's going to be known as "the loud one" and "a bad influence", which we all know adds up to "that kid".

After I run over and rescue this other woman's son, who can't get down on his own, and my son just jumps right off like he actually is the monkey that he seems to be, I figure it's time to get out of there. I get my son to run back over to where the crowd is and then I ask him to leave with me.

At this point I knew he wasn't going to leave peacefully. So I bit the bullet and picked him up to go. Right on cue, as we are passing the open entrance to the room where everyone is still listening to the speakers, he starts his screaming and kicking in my arms.

I offer a little smile to some of the women while I'm doing my wrestling routine, and I say a pleasant "see you next week!" and get the heck out of dodge.

Yup, that's my kid. Non-stop.

Which is great if you're on a cross-country flight. Or at a concert. Or at a number of things that really only last a set amount of hours.

I'm afraid this non-stop doesn't end for another year or two.

And I believe the same can be said for the eye-rolling that I'll be witnessing, which I've somehow managed to avoid for the past 7 years.

So Many Moments, So Little Typing

Where do I start? This past week had so many precious moments. And funny moments. And exhausting moments. And I wanted to remember them all so I could write about them later. Well not the exhausting ones because we all have enough complaining in our lives already. I know I do. But try as I might to capture all these moments in writing, they remained only written in my mind. So I'll try to sum up the good ones for you.

Last weekend we took my oldest to get her ears pierced. Yikes. Talk about an age marker. I can't believe she's old enough already. But we said we'd talk about it after her 7th birthday, and then we settled on her being 7 1/2. Which was officially last week. So off we went to the mall. And there were 2 girls ahead of her in line. The first one we saw was a very brave and stoic role model which I was pleased to see. Then it was time for the next girl to go. She was fine until the moment of truth on her first ear and she flinched just as the girl was doing the piercing. The job came out okay, but the girl started bawling and saying that it hurt and she didn't want the other one done. That poor mom had to calm her down and then talk her into sticking around for the other one, which she knew wasn't going to feel good. But thankfully she did it and survived. Then my daughter went up there and was very brave through it all. She ended up lucking out and having the second employee available to help when it was her turn, so she had both done at the same time. And she never shed a tear. Now she LOVES having her little pink crystal flowers in her ears. It goes great with her new haircut, which is about 10 inches shorter (and now Locks of Love is the recipient of all her patience over the past year).

Then last week was the end of the school year, which somehow gets translated into hurry-hurry-hurry-have-lots-of-events-and-meetings-and-too-much-fun-before-the-world-implodes. The first event that fell under this category was the recap and brainstorm meeting for the PTA Board. Did I mention that I got shanghaied into being an officer on the PTA next year? Okay, shanghaied might be a strong word. Let's put that under the category of It's An Honor To Be Asked To Serve My Country School, and subcategorize it under I Can't Say No. Anyway, back to the meeting. The only reason I highlight this event is because I had one of those "yes, that's my kid" moments. So here was this group of lovely ladies that were sitting around a family room in a lovely home, and I there I was with my two youngest rugrats. I brought them along (with fair warning to the group) and figured I'd put them in front of a show and they'd stay happy for a bit. Which worked for a while, but then my youngest got restless and decided to go up to the sliding glass door to watch the dog in the back yard. A little time passed and I was just thankful they were still quiet and staying out of the middle of the room and conversation. Then one of these sweet ladies gets my attention and points to her open mouth, and then points to my son, who is behind me. I turn around to see my son licking the sliding glass door and sharing a french kiss through the glass with a golden retriever. And he was leaving more drool on the window than the dog.

Yup. He's with me.

Another great moment from last week was on Thursday night. My younger daughter had a gymnastics "show". This is sort of a recital that they do every 6 months and invite us all in to watch from inside the gym so that we can feel like our kids are really getting something out of all the money we sink into the place. This being her 3rd or 4th show, and her being the rather shy one in the group (although she will always participate and perform, which we love) we weren't expecting anything too new. But low and behold, when it was her turn to run in and jump on the vault up to the platform and stand up on that platform all by herself to introduce herself to the crowd, she did just that. Did you get that? SHE DID JUST THAT. She introduced herself to the room. In a clear and somewhat loud voice. With eye contact no less.

Whaaaatt?! Who's child was this anyway? My husband and I could have been blown over by a feather. She's never done that before, and it was a HUGE step toward her blooming social side. One of the teachers, that she has had for the past 2 years, came up to me afterward and expressed her pleasant shock with it all. She couldn't believe it either. When I asked if she ever talked in class, she said that her public introduction was just about the most she's heard her say, ever.

One other moment from that night deserves a shout out. My daughter and her crowd pleasing introduction was not the first one to make an entrance for the class performance. The first boy that came in did so in the same fashion, running and jumping up to his shining moment on the stand. And just after his jump onto the platform, we all heard "ooooh....I try it!" and then we saw the streak of my son running past us all, crossing the entire floor exercise mat to reach the platform, then hurling himself at this kid's ankles up on the stand before my husband could retrieve him.

Yup, that's my kid.

So many moments in such a busy week. I wish I had time to capture them all with the details they deserve. But suffice it to say, just because this blog goes quiet for a few too many days, it does not, in any way, mirror what is happening in the daily life of this mom.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Lately we've been having a lot of bumps in the night.  As I mentioned not long ago, our son has figured out how to get out of the crib by himself.  And he helps himself to this lovely exercise every night at bedtime.  We are now going into our 3rd week of this, and it's finally getting better.  And no, we haven't gotten a big boy bed yet.  And yes, we probably should.  But he's our third child, and so far he hasn't injured himself, so we are feeling pretty good about it all.

The tell-tale sign of how much his bedtime routine is getting better is how many loud thumps you hear in a single sitting.  It used to be 6 or 7 or more.  And it would go on for an hour.  A lot of those sessions were peppered with "Daaaaddy" and pleas for more time with his idol.  And the more daddy got involved in the process, the longer it all seemed to go on.  

So I put an end to that pretty fast.  Call me a spoil-sport, but it was getting a little ridiculous.  My husband would get so annoyed by it all that he'd resort to some crazy tactics.  Although one of them turned out to not be so crazy.  

It seems that taking his favorite snuggly animal away got our son to listen up a little.  Yes, it seems a little cruel.  But it worked for my husband, and I've gotten it to work for me too. 

Now this week my husband has been out of town and I have things running like a tired rusty squeaky well-oiled machine.

I put him in his bed, tell him to stay there, and I leave.  I wait outside and if I hear him stand up I look in and say "lie down".  If he doesn't lie down, I come in and take away his doggy, and go back outside.  After he's been able to lie down in his crib for a few minutes without standing up, I go in and give it back.  And we do it all over again if he stands up again, or if he gets out before I can catch him.  Tonight, after only 2 escapes, he settled down and went to sleep.  Not bad considering I wasn't patrolling his room very well.  The other night it was only once.  A record!

Nap time has gotten better too.  It's never been as bad as bedtime, but today he just went right down and never even bothered to take a second look at the door.  Sweet.

Now the only other hitch in this is that at times he's been getting up during the night.  And he doesn't hesitate to just thump his way out of bed.  It's rather startling to be woken up by the sound of your child basically jumping out of his crib.  

And you add to that the weird energy that we've had in the house around midnight, and you get some more bumps in the night.  For the last several nights, the kids have all taken turns getting up around 12:15am.  The first night it was my younger daughter, complaining that it was too dark or some other asinine thing like that.  Too dark?  It's the middle of the goddamned night.  Of course it's too dark!  And of course she had to tell me this on 3 separate occasions over the next half hour.  Then, at 2:30a that night, there was a bump in the night.  Jailbird was stretching his wings and it took 2 times to get him back in bed for good.

The next night my son was randomly out of his crib close to midnight.  With barely a peep he escaped, but I only had to put him back one time.

Then last night I figure maybe, just maybe, it will be a quiet night.  Sure enough, my younger daughter and my son were quiet all night.  But, go figure, my oldest got up to go to the bathroom at 12:15am.  Now normally I might not have stirred too much when she gets up, which is very rarely.  But these days we have so many bumps in the night that require my more or less immediate attention.  So I sprang out of bed at the first sounds, only to see my son's door still closed and to hear the little tinkle from the bathroom.

Great.  I'm up even when I don't have to be!  So be it.

Now here's the kicker for all of this sleeping madness.  Around the same time that my son started escaping from the crib, he also started getting up around 5:45a or 6am.  Oy!  Who the hell wants to be up at 5:45am other than the girl that delivers our newspaper?  And for a non-morning person, that's like getting up in the middle of the night.

For the past few weeks my husband has been taking the morning shift, as usual.  We have tried putting my son back in his crib, but it's usually useless.  You end up just getting way too much exercise for that time of morning.  What's also usually useless is me going back to sleep.  But at least I get a few quiet minutes in a warm bed before I have to face the world.

This morning stuff was the thing I was dreading when I knew my husband was going out of town.  Sure enough, after that night when my daughter had me up at midnight (right after I'd gone to bed, by the way), and then my son had me up at 2:30am, there he was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5:45am.

Enough is enough.

I tried putting him back in, over and over, until about 6:15am, and then I gave up.  

The next morning I tried to have a more positive attitude, and while I was putting him back in at almost 6am, I did the take-away-his-favorite-stuffed-animal-the-only-piece-of-security-he-has-in-the-crib-we-are-cruel-parents trick.  And it worked for a bit.  Then I told him, after I gave it back, stay here and wait for mommy to come back.  And just like sleep-training in reverse, I came back after a few minutes and said "good job", and then again after 5 minutes, and then again after 10 minutes.  And then I called it a morning and got up with him at 6:30am.

Are you tired yet?

Well here's the good news.  Last night I put him to bed and after not too much fuss, he was out at 8:15pm.  Which I have decided needs to be his new bedtime, since he's clearly getting enough sleep that he can wake up before the roosters.  And had I closed his curtains real tight to keep out the morning light.  And I had turned his humidifier down to a lower setting so it wasn't quite so loud (good for drowning out our night time noise with the girls when he's trying to go to sleep, but I've noticed it seems awfully loud during our middle of the night tea parties).  And I hoped that our morning lesson had struck a bit of a chord.

And this morning he slept until 6:45am.  Whaaaaat?!  

Not only that, he didn't make a thump when he got out of bed.  He managed to get out quietly, then walk over to our door.  At that point he usually starts saying "daaaaaadddy" much too loud for everyone else in the house.  But this morning he didn't do that.  He just stood quietly right by our door until I came over to get him.

And that's when I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing.

Now the question is, what worked?  Was it the morning before?  Was it the curtains?  The humidifier?  I have no idea, but I'm repeating it all again and we'll see what happens.

The saddest part of this whole thing is that I am absolutely ecstatic that I got to sleep in until 6:45am this morning.

Signs of Things to Come

I think we've entered into a new chapter in our family this week.  It's all about the boy-girl thing.  Or boys trying to impress girls at least.  Okay, let me explain.

I have to start by saying that one of the best parts of living in a planned community with about 5 feet in between your house and your neighbor, and what feels like only 20 square feet of backyard, is that you are sort of forced into the neighborhood for your outdoor play.  This means that when we are outside, so are all of the kids in our immediate area.  The kids of the month right now are a few 11 and 12 year old boys that live on either side of us, and a couple of 2 year old boys down the street as well.  This story really pertains more to the older boys.   But for the record, there are also a few girls ages 6 to 12 right around the corner, it's just that the boys tend to circulate around our street due to the proximity to their houses.  

Now let me say that these boys are absolutely adorable and very sweet with my little kids.  And lately they've been great at keeping all of my children entertained, especially my oldest.  They ride their scooters and bikes around with them and in general they all have a lot of fun.

The interesting part started when one of the boys came over on his electric motor bike.  This is something that looks like a small version of a motor bike, but makes no noise when it runs since it's an electric motor that runs on battery.  Pretty cool.  So cool in fact that my husband took a spin on it the other day and was quite amused by it all.

While they were all riding around, my husband included, the boy that owns it offered to give my oldest daughter a ride on the back.  She agreed, then hopped on, and off they went down the street (with helmet of course).  

That's where it all began.  The sight of her on the back of that bike, holding on tight to that little boy, was sort of a life changing event for us.  It was like we were watching our daughter take off on the back of a motorcycle after her boyfriend picked her up to go out on a Saturday night.  

It's definitely bittersweet to watch your kids grow up.  You rejoice in their new endeavors and adventures, but you realize that even if it's not right this moment, at some point they will be letting go of you and grabbing on to their future.  Hopefully they will do this one hand at a time, or even one finger at a time, but nonetheless, they will be letting go one day.

Thankfully for right now she's still holding on tight to us.  But that vision made us see the future a little more clearly.  And with a little more fright too.  Of course it didn't hurt that she had a tattoo on her arm at the time which was a star with wings on it, just like you might see on a biker babe's arm.  So there she was, helmet strapped on, all inked up, riding on the back of this guy's bike.  Are you with me now?

As an aside, later on that afternoon my husband says that she pretty much went "toe-to-toe" with a couple of these boys during a discussion.  She was apparently determined that her point of view was correct, and she wasn't going to back down to them.  And if you know my oldest child at all, this probably doesn't surprise you.  She may be only 7 years old, but she thinks much like a 10 or 12 year old, often surprisingly so.  Perhaps this is filling in the picture a bit more for you now.

So after the bike fun was over it was back to scootering and sidewalk chalk as usual.  Then a few days later, the same offer was made, and she was back on that bike with this sweet young man (little boy, really, but you can't help but think of him as a  young man because he's so nice and well-mannered).  Again, the ride was over and she was back to her usual 7-year-old play.

A few days later, one of the other boys came over knocking on the door after school.  He had a new electric scooter and he was looking for someone to share the excitement with, so he thought he'd see if my oldest was around.  But she was at a friend's house, so I had to send him packing.  While he's walking away he says "don't tell her, okay?" meaning that he doesn't want me to tell my daughter that he stopped by.  Hmmmm.

The next day when we were outside playing, here he comes on his new electric scooter.  He shows us all his new toy, and after a little bit he asks if my oldest daughter wants to ride on the back of it with him.  While this boy is nice, and the scooter seems fun, it's just not the same as a motor bike, and my daughter declines.  He then asks a couple more times, and ends with a "are you sure?" and I can hear that he's a little disappointed.

Uh oh.  They might only be 12 years old boys, but they are in tune with the competition that life offers, and it seems that there is a very subtle bit of it riding in the wake of all these electric motors.  And I think my daughter has unknowingly crushed a smidgeon of it.

So here we are.  The door to the next phase of life has cracked open and given us a glimpse of things to come.  The boys calling at the door.  The rides off into the sunset. The disappointment of rejection.  

Thankfully I think that door only opened a tiny bit, and it is now closed again.  But it's bound to re-open sometime soon.

A little too soon I'm afraid.

Number Two

It seems that my number three has become quite obsessed with number two.  Well really it's just the word that has captured his fancy.  Who knew "poop" could be used in so many clever ways?

I think his fascination started when he would say it and his big sisters would laugh.  While he does know the correct meaning of the word, and can use it appropriately, he has much more fun using it to be silly.  Here are some of the highlights over the past couple of weeks.

While driving in the car one day, all the kids got too loud with their arguing and talking over each other.  So I did one of my very loud and authoritative "That's it!  No one talks for 3 minutes!  We need some quiet time!".  The girls willingly obliged lest they face more of my wrath.  But then after about 5 seconds of lovely peace and quiet, my son bellowed out "POOP!" at the top of his lungs.  And yes, we all laughed.  Because poop is funny, right?

Well, sometimes.

When a little girl, whom we didn't know but was waiting in line near us, became fascinated with his buckle on his stroller, he sat by silently watching her work to try to buckle him in.  "What a sweet little guy you are," the girls' mother said. "What's your name?" she harmlessly asked.  "Poop," my son replies.  Whoops.  That one was a bit embarrassing.

Many times when we are driving in the car, he'll make the rounds with the family while he is babbling.  "Poop....mommy poop......daddy poop......bella poop.....fia poop...."

And occasionally we'll even get "Elmo poop" tagged on to the end, because really, Elmo is one of the family now.

Whenever his big sister starts telling Knock-Knock jokes, he'll chime in when she's done.  "Knock knock," he'll say.  Then we say "who's there?" after he patiently waits for our response.  Now you see where this is going, don't you?  He replies "poop," and starts cracking up.

It's gotten to the point where I can use the word "poop" as a thermometer of his mood.  If he's cranky when he wakes up, he'll drink his milk and eat a little breakfast.  And then when he's feeling more social, I will look at him and give him some of that mommy-love-in-a-look, and he'll belt out a nice soft "poooop" and I'll know we are past the crankiness and on to a better mood.

Ah, the simplicity of life as a toddler.  If only things such as this could keep us happy forever.  The world would be a better place.

Through and Through

My son never ceases to prove to me that boys are different from girls. From the very beginning he's been louder, more active, and more opinionated.

He's a boy, through and through.

He climbs higher, runs faster and throws more than his sisters ever did. He even pulls hair, so I guess he's ready to sit behind the girl with pigtails in first grade.

His problems come from not moving as fast or as far as he'd like to, which usually leads to a good tumble. Quite a few times I've had strangers gasp as they see him take a fall right on his belly after a mad dash for something. As I watch him I hardly even move, which gets mixed reactions from said strangers, but my boy proves me right as he'll just get up and keep on running to his target, no looking back.

But don't get me wrong. He can cry with the best of them. Usually that's how I know if there is blood involved. He's cut his lip or mouth more times than I can count at this point. And his faceplants over just the last few days have led to no less than 3 nose bleeds. During which he'll scream at the top of his lungs until I distract him with something else. Only then will I be able to clean up the blood dripping down his face.

The funny thing is, compared to the girls, he's my pickiest eater. I don't know how that happened other than the fact that I probably gave in to his demands since he was so loud in making his opinions heard. That, and the fact that I didn't take the time necessary to make him "like" all kinds of foods. It was easier to just keep shoving the same thing I knew he liked into his mouth; all the better to keep him quiet.

Like a lot of his brethren, he'll whine and whimper for food or something to drink until he gets what he wants. Then after he's gorged himself he'll give a big smile and get down to go play. It's one of the few times during the day when he's happy to just go off and explore all on his own, content with even the simplest of toys. I guess it's true what they say about the way to a man's heart is through his belly.

There is one other time during the day when he's happy to go play by himself; it comes along with a strong foul odor. It never fails that just as I'm thinking "boy, he's been off playing nicely by himself for a while now," he'll wander back in to say hi and the stinkies are not far behind. Pun intended.

Like a lot of men I have known in my lifetime, he's happiest after a good meal or a good poop. Better yet, both.

Yup. He's a boy through and through.